IRLF 


SB    M3    D3D 


Juniata  Bible  Lectures 


A  SERIES  OF  TWELVE  LECTURES,  MOSTLY  ON  THE 
BOOK  OF  RUTH,  DELIVERED    TO   THE  STU- 
DENTS   OF     THE   BIBLE    SESSION    OF 
JUNIATA  COLLEGE,  HUNTINGDON, 
PA.,  FEBRUARY,  1897 


Martin  G.  Brumbaugh,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D. 

;/ 

President  of  Juniata  College,  and  Professor  of  Pedagogy,  University 
of  Pennsylvania 


AVIL  PRINTING  Co., 

3941-43-45  MARKET  STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA. 


To 
The  Church  of  the  Brethren, 

and 

Juniata  College, 
the  Church  and  School  I  love 


235136 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  publication  of  this  volume  is  due  to  the  forethought 
of  my  dear  Brother,  Elder  J.  B.  Brumbaugh. 

When  it  was  arranged  that  I  should  deliver  a  course  of 
lectures  for  the  fourth  consecutive  year  at  the  Bible  Session 
of  Juniata  College.,  he  employed,  unknown  to  me,  a  stenogra- 
pher to  report  the  lectures. 

This  volume  is  the  result.  In  justice,  it  should  be  under- 
stood that  these  lectures  were  given  without  preparation.  In 
the  midst  of  multiplied  duties,  and  often  after  an  all-night 
trip  from  Philadelphia,  they  were  spoken  with  such  haste 
and  unpreparedness  as  to  divest  them  of  all  literary  merit. 
The  lessons  they  convey  are,  for  the  most  part,  clearly 
expressed.  Any  attempt  to  recast  the  language  would  mani- 
festly rob  them  of  the  peculiar  style  characteristic  of  their 
author  in  impromptu  address. 

They  come  to  you  just  as  they  fell  upon  the  ears  of  the 
large  and  attentive  class  of  students  that  crowded  into  the 
sacred  little  chapel  of  Juniata  during  the  early  days  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1897.  Primarily,  they  are  intended  for  the  ministers 
of  our  own  Brotherhood.  Argument  is  pushed  and  thought 
developed  only  far  enough  to  awaken  thought  and  inspire 
discourse.  Incidentally,  any  thoughtful  reader,  concerned 
in  the  plain,  simple  truth  that  clusters  about  a  noble  life, 
and  desires  to  live  more  consecratedly,  will  find,  it  is  hoped, 
inspiration  and  direction. 

That  the  Brotherhood  may  know  something  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  Bible  work  done  at  Juniata,  and  that  it  may  be 
the  means,  under  God's  direction,  of  doing  some  little  good, 
this  volume  is  prayerfully  given  to  the  public. 

M.  G.  B. 

Philadelphia,  May  12,  1897. 

(5) 


A  SERIES  OF 

Lectures  on  the  Book  of  Ruth; 


LECTURE  I. 

In  taking  up  this  work,  I  am  a  bit  puzzled  to  know  what  is 
the  most  profitable  thing  to  do.  For  two  years  we  have  had 
the  Book  of  Psalms.  Before  that  we  studied  the  Book  of 
Job.  I  have  concluded  to  take  up  the  Book  of  Ruth.  You 
will  find  it  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  a  short  book,  of  but 
four  chapters  and  eighty-four  verses: — So  simple  in  its  char- 
acter and  beautiful  in  its  story  that  a  child  might  commit  it 
to  memory;  and  all  of  us,  I  think,  ought  to  be  sufficiently 
familiar  with  it  to  be  able  to  tell  in  substance  the  story  of 
the  life  of  this  marvelous  woman  of  Moab;  the  beautiful, 
simple  story  of  the  life  of  Ruth. 

There  are  but  few  characters  mentioned  in  this  book,  and 
all  of  them  are  interesting — Boaz,  Elimelech,  Ruth,  Orpah, 
Naomi;  but  you  could  not  call  it  the  book  of  Boaz,  nor  the 
book  of  Naomi,  nor  the  book  of  Elimelech  and  preserve  the 
remarkable  interest  of  the  story;  for  all  the  other  characters 
and  incidents  in  the  book  centre  around  and  are  subordinate 
to  the  peculiar  interest  and  moral  lessons  growing  out  of  the 
simple  life  of  Ruth,  the  Moabitess.  The  book  is  well  named, 
"The  Book  of  Ruth." 

A  word  as  to  its  organization.  The  first  chapter  of  the 
book  may  be  called  a  recital  of  the  troubles  of  the  righteous. 
It  brings  to  us,  I  think,  what  we  often  learn,  that  the  troubles 
of  the  righteous  are  by  no  means  few.  And  then  the  chap- 

(7) 


8  LECTURES  ON  THE 

ters  beginning  with  the  second  and  ending  with  the  last, 
show  how  God  delivers  the  righteous  from  all  their  troubles. 

Here  you  have  the  two  sides  of  a  picture:  First  the 
dark  side,  second  the  bright  side;  first  the  sorrows,  second 
God's  restoring  hand.  Looking  at  the  book  in  that  way  will 
give  you  a  basis  for  its  study.  If  you  want  to  see  how  the  life 
of  this  simple  family  went  into  eclipse  as  the  result  of  their 
sins  and  their  wilfullness,  read  the  first  chapter.  If  you  want 
to  see  what  God  can  do  for  a  person  even  when  he  is  down  in 
this  world,  read  this  history  from  the  second  chapter  to  the 
end.  The  character  of  the  book  is  peculiar.  It  is  what,  if 
we  were  to  classify  it  as  a  piece  of  literature,  we  should  call  a 
pastoral.  It  deals  with  rustic  life,  with  simple  life,  with 
uneventful  life.  It  has  nothing  of  the  spirit  of  the  city, 
nothing  of  kings  and  courtiers,  nothing  of  forms  and  ceremo- 
nies. It  is  the  simple  recital  of  the  simple  life  of  a  rustic 
people.  For  that  reason  it  appeals  especially  to  people  who 
have  been  brought  up  in  the  country,  people  who  love  rural 
scenes  and  rural  incidents.  It  seems  to  me  the  spirit  of  the 
book,  as  I  read  it  over,  more  and  more  focuses  itself  around 
this  one  thought.  It  makes  sacred  the  commonplace  things/ 
of  life.  You  and  I  have  come  to  believe  that  the  sanctuary 
is  the  most  sacred  place  in  the  world,  and  that  is  true.  We 
have  somehow  inherited  the  old  Jewish  notion  that  the  sanc- 
tuary is  the  only  sacred  place  in  the  world;  that  scenes  in  the 
kitchen,  in  the  shop,  on  the  farm,  on  the  hillside  following 
the  sheep — scenes  everywhere  in  the  ordinary  places  of  life — 
are  not  sacred;  that  God  does  not  bother  with  us  save  when 
we  get  down  on  our  knees  in  church.  We  do  believe  that 
God  is  everywhere,  and  that  he  looks  after  us,  but  somehow 
or  other  we  have  gotten  the  notion  that  in  order  to  serve  him 
we  have  to  go  into  a  church  and  sing  or  pray.  The  Book  of 
Euth  is  to  set  us  right  on  this  matter. 

The  Book  of  Euth  is  to  teach  us  that  there  is  no  place  in 
our  lives  or  no  scene  in  our  lives  that  is  too  common  to 
merit  the  recognition  of  God.  The  faithful  care  of  God  is 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  9 

manifest  in  all  that  we  do.  It  comes  to  us  with  peculiar 
force,  as  we  study  this  book,  that  the  most  commonplace 
things  of  life  are  the  things  that  reach  to  the  very  throne  of 
Heaven.  There  is  a  fine  example  here  for  young  women  o£ 
unselfish  virtue,  of  absolute  purity  in  time  of  great  distress| 
in  the  faithful  reward  that  came  to  this  marvelous  woman 
because  she  steadfastly  did  the  thing  that  was  right.  There 
is  also  a  hint  here  of  a  truth  that  we  ought  always  to  keep 
before  us,  that  God  knows  the  private  affairs  of  our  lives.  He) 
could  look  down  into  the  simple  heart  of  Ruth  and  know| 
jhatjt  was  pure.  He  could  see  every  movement  and  impulse 
of  her  soul.  He  knew  that  it  was  clean  altogether.  So  clean 
that  he  could  lead  her  into  such  close  relationship  with  him- 
self that  she  became  one  of  the  ancestors  of  the  blessed 
Christ.  Then  you  have  here  also  the  picture  of  God's  atti- 
tude toward  widows  and  fatherless  people  in  this  world.  The 
mother  and  two  daughters  were  left  fatherless  and  husband- 
less.  God  takes  charge  of  these  women,  and  God  deals  with 
them  even  better  than  they  could  have  dealt  for  themselves, 
if  they  had  continued  in  the  original  relation  in  the  family. 
There  is  another  lesson  here  that  is  rather  peculiar.  We  have 
come  to  the  notion,  I  think,  lately,  that  to  evangelize  the 
world  we  should  send  missionaries  out  from  the  best  places 
into  the  dark  places.  We  have  done  that;  all  Christian  churches 
are  doing  it — that  is,  the  light  of  the  church  has  gone  out 
into  the  darkness  of  heathendom,  and  has  illumined  the  world 
where  before  there  was  the  darkness  of  doubt  and  skepti- 
cism, superstition  and  idolatry,  and  all  that.  And  we  have 
come  to  believe  this  to  be  a  necessary  thing.  But  here  is  a 
lesson  in  the  Book  of  Ruth  the  very  reverse  of  that.  Here 
you  have  Bethlehem  in  the  land  of  promise,  the  place  where 
God  had  established  his  people,  and  where  he  had  shed  the 
light  of  his  revelation  and  the  instructions  of  his  divine 
prophets  before  his  people;  but  in  spite  of  all  that,  this  Jew- 
ish land  had  gone  into  darkness  under  the  Judges.  And  God 
raised  Ruth  out  of  the  land  of  Moab  and  brought  her  into  the 


10  LECTURES  ON  THE 

land  of  Judea  to  spread  the  light  of  God  among  his  own 
people.  This  would  find  a  parallel  if  a  man  should  grow  up 
in  India  or  Ethiopia  and  come  to  America  to  preach  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  us,  who  think  we  have  it,  but  who 
need  to  be  re-enlightened.  It  is  just  the  reversal  of  the  mod- 
ern missionary  spirit.  God  brings  a  woman  from  a  heathen  J 
land  to  his  own  chosen  people  to  show  what  genuine  Chris-| 
tianity  and  godliness  and  purity  are.  So  a  heathen  woman p 
brings  the  gospel  of  God  into  the  land  of  promise.  This  is  a" 
real  anomaly  and  a  remarkable  condition  of  things.  When 
the  United  States  forgets  so  much  the  spirit  of  God  that  men 
and  women  from  heathen  lands  shall  have  to  come  among  us 
and  teach  us  what  the  churches  are  for,  and  tell  us  the  lan- 
guage of  Heaven  that  we  have  forgotten,  then  I  think, 
indeed,  it  will  be  a  distressful  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  And  God  would  certainly  bring  upon  us  then,  as  he 
did  bring  upon  this  people  here,  some  dire  calamity  to  teach 
us  that  in  his  judgment  and  in  his  providence  we  have  a 
right  to  suffer  for  our  own  apostasy. 

There  is  another  peculiar  thing  in  the  life  of  Euth.  How 
many  of  you  know  the  story  of  Euth?  How  many  of  you 
know  that  she  was  really  the  great-great-grandmother  of 
David,  and  that  she  came  right  into  the  royal  line?  I  don't 
know  anything  more  wonderful  than  that.  This  story  of 
Euth  is  a  flash-light  on  the  ancestry  of  David.  How  many 
of  you  know  anything  about  your  grandfather?  Do  you 
know  his  name?  How  many  of  you  know  the  given  name  of 
your  great-grandfather  on  your  father's  side?  How  far  back 
can  you  go?  Five  generations?  How  many  of  you  can  go- 
back  six?  How  many  of  you  can  go  back  twelve?  That  isr 
you  go  back  along  the  line,  and  somewhere  you  get  into 
absolute  darkness,  and  you  cannot  go  any  further.  Would 
not  you  give  something  this  afternoon  if  I  could  come  in 
here  and  say,  "I  have  just  found  a  paper  that  is  the  history 
of  your  great-grandfather  twenty  generations  ago,  that  tells 
what  kind  of  a  man  he  was?"  Would  you  not  sit  up  straight 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  11 

and  listen  intently,  and  want  to  know  what  kind  of  a  man  he 
was?  It  would  be  a  flash-light  into  your  ancestry.  Some- 
how I  have  more  and  more  come  to  feel  that  if  I  could  look 
down  the  line  of  men  and  women  that  have  stood  before 
you  between  you  and  heaven,  I  could  understand  a  little  bet- 
ter some  of  the  things  that  you  are  and  some  of  the  things 
that  you  do.  But  such  a  thing  is  impossible  after  five  or 
six  generations.  Here  comes  this  woman  and  does  acts  of 
such  significance  that  they  are  recorded  in  the  word  of  God. 
It  is  a  light  on  the  ancestry  of  David,  and  on  the  ancestry  of 
Christ.  And  it  is  to  me  a  source  of  great  comfort  to  know 
that  men  like  David  and  Solomon  and  Jesse  and  the  Christ 
himself  were  born  of  noble  parents;  that  they  had  in  their 
blood  the  spirit  and  power  of  women  like  Euth.  That  is  a 
comforting  thought  to  me. 

It  brings  two  thoughts  to  me:  How  grateful  we  ought  to 
be  that  we  have  good  jmrents  and  good  ancestry.  The  grati- 
tude of  children  to  a  good  father  and  a  good  mother  is  never 
to  be  measured.  It  is  never  to  be  thought  of  slightingly. 
It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  in  the  measuring  and  estimating 
of  your  fellows. 

It  brings  to  us  again,  on  the  other  side,  this  thought — 
the  tremendous  significance  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood 
in  this  world.  What  are  you  going  to  transmit  to  your  chil- 
dren? What  are  you  going  to  send  down  to  the  generations 
to  come? 

Are  you  going  to  give  them  impulses  pure  as  that  of  Euth, 
that  made  David  and  made  possible  the  Christ,  or  are  you 
going  to  transmit  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  felons 
for  the  prisons  and  convicts  for  the  penitentiaries?  What  is 
to  be  your  gift  to  posterity?  What  a  significant  fact  it  is 
that  when  you  die  all  your  influence  is  not  buried  with  you. 
Your  influence  sweeps  on  into  children's  children,  and 
moulds  nations,  and  transforms  the  world,  and  makes  his- 
tory, and  counts  for  good  and  for  righteousness,  or  against 
God  and  against  righteousness  forever.  You  don't  live  to 


12  LECTURES  ON  THE 

yourself  alone;  you  live  for  all  those  that  are  to  come  after 
you  in  the  countless  ages  of  God.  You  ought  to  live  so 
to-day  that  you  bequeath  to  those  that  come  after  you  the 
best  things.  Euth  probably  was  not  aware  of  the  fact  that 
her  quiet,  simple  life  was  to  make  her  a  queen  of  Heaven 
among  all  people.  But  the  fact  that  she  lived  purer  and 
sweeter  and  cleaner  than  anybody  else  made  her  pre-emi- 
nently such  a  one  as  God  should  choose, — God,  who  knows 
how  to  pick.  We  may  not  find  the  queens;  God  always  does. 
No  virtue  is  lost.  I  think  this  throws  a  side-light  on  the 
character  of  the  ancestry  of  noble  people.  The  marriage  of 
Euth  and  Boaz  is  probably  purely  symbolical,  to  be  inter- 
preted as  a  type  of  the  mystical  union  of  the  church  and 
Christ  himself;  and  this  whole  Book  of  Euth  is  a  type  of  how 
God  brings  in  the  whole  world  of  the  Gentiles  and  makes 
them  the  property  of  Christ,  producing  the  mystical  union  of 
God  and  the  Lamb.  It  is  not  going  too  far  to  say  that  the 
Book  of  Euth  is  the  Gentile's  hope  in  the  Old  Testament, 
just  as  the  Letters  of  Paul  are  the  Gentile's  justification  in 
the  New. 

You  will  find  nowhere,  from  Genesis  to  the  end  of  the 
First  Testament,  anything  so  well  suited  to  justify  the  claim 
that  God  from  the  beginning  meant  the  gentile  world  to 
share  in  the  promise  of  heaven  as  this  Book  of  Euth.  Again, 
there  is  the  thought  here  as  to  the  author  of  this  book.  No- 
body knows  who  wrote  it.  It  was  many  years  ago  printed  in 
the  Jewish  rabbinical  writings  along  with  the  Book  of 
Samuel.  At  another  time  it  formed  the  concluding  chapters 
of  the  Book  of  Judges.  And  some  authorities  have  consid- 
ered Samuel  as  the  author  of  it.  But  that  is  exceedingly 
problematical.  It  is  wiser  to  say  that  you  don't  know  who 
wrote  it,  and  you  will  be  safe  there,  at  any  rate.  It  was 
written  after  David's  birth,  for  David  is  mentioned  in  it. 
It  was  written  after  Saul's  crowning,  for  the  crowning  of 
Saul  is  mentioned  in  it.  It  was  written  in  a  time  of  peace, 
and  therefore  perhaps  before  David  became  king.  It  was 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  13 

evidently  written  before  the  birth  of  Solomon,  since  Solomon 
does  not  figure  in  the  genealogy  at  the  close  of  it.  Where  do 
you  suppose  this  man  that  wrote  this  Book  of  Ruth,  in  the 
time  of  David,  under  the  reign  of  Saul,  and  before  the  birth 
of  Solomon,  in  a  time  of  peace,  got  the  material  for  this  mar- 
velous story.  Now,  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  it  had 
been  a  fleeting  image  of  beauty  in  the  traditions  of  this  peo- 
ple for  a  thousand  years — one  of  those  legends  that  after 
a  while  blossoms  into  language  and  becomes  the  description 
of  the  sentiment  of  many  people.  Where  do  you  suppose 
the  people  got  the  stories  of  Homer?  He  never  made  them. 
They  were  stories  told  for  generations  in  the  camp  and  by 
the  fireside.  Where  did  Sir  Walter  Scott  get  all  the  legends 
he  has  woven  into  prose  and  poetry?  They  were  the  folk- 
lore of  the  Scottish  people,  singing  with  her  birds,  roaring 
with  her  mighty  ocean,  until  Sir  Walter  Scott  came  under 
their  influence  and  crystallized  them  into  verse  and  into  lan- 
guage forever.  So,  I  take  it,  that  whoever  wrote  this  Book 
of  Ruth  was  directed  to  this  beautiful  legend  that  floated 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people  for  ages  and  ages,  until  every- 
body came  to  accept  it  as  one  of  the  stories  that  was  typical 
of  Jewish  home  life,  and  then  it  was  selected,  by  God's  direc- 
tion, to  become  a  part  of  the  inspired  revelation.  God  trans- 
forms this  rustic  scene  into  a  holy  narrative,  and  makes  it 
sacred  forever. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  first  chapter  and  see  how  it  reads. 
Chapter  one,  verse  one:  "Now  it  came  to  pass  in  the  days 
when  the  Judges  ruled,  that  there  was  a  famine  in  the  land. 
And  a  certain  man  of  Bethlehem  Judah  went  to  sojourn  in 
the  country  of  Moab,  he,  and  his  wife,  and  his  two  sons." 
"It  came  to  pass" — that  is  a  peculiar  Hebraic  way  of  saying 
things.  Notice  the  peculiar  vagueness  of  that  expression. 
"It  came  to  pass."  Who  made  it  come  to  pass?  Does  it 
begin,  "And  the  king  brought  to  pass  these  things?"  Does 
it  say,  "And  in  the  ccmrse  of  time  the  people  brought  to  pass 
these  things?"  No.  It  is  a  peculiar  Hebraic  statement,. 


14  LECTURES  ON  THE 

common  to  the  Hebrew  people,  by  which  they  expressed  the 
power  at  work  among  them  from  above,  the  power  which 
they  called  in  their  theology  Jehovah.  It  came  to  pass  with- 
out any  human  help,  even  ajgainst  human  purpose  and 
human  power.  "It  came  to  pass."  If  you  go  out  and  see  a 
great  avalanche  rushing  down  the  mountain,  and  put  your 
shoulder  against  it,  what  would  happen?  Do  you  think  the 
avalanche  would  stop?  ISTo,  you  would  simply  go  sliding 
along  with  it.  It  would  go  on  whether  you  pushed  or  pulled. 
What  matters  that  to  the  mighty  power  that  is  moving  that 
tremendous,  monumental  mass  down  the  mountain  side! 
You  don't  figure  in  the  process  at  all.  It  comes  to  pass.  "It 
came  to  pass."  That  is  all  we  know  about  it — an  admission 
from  the  first  of  what  I  should  always  like  my  pupils  in 
school  to  remember,  that  there  is  a  power  above  human  exi- 
gencies that  does  bring  things  to  pass. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  starting-place  in  this  beginning  of 
sorrows.  This  first  chapter  is  a  chapter  of  sorrows.  First 
you  have  the  famine.  Does  it  not  say  that  there  was  a  fam- 
ine? Who  brought  the  famine?  Did  the  men  vote  for  it? 
Did  the  people  decide  to  have  a  famine?  Or  did  they  decide 
not  to  have  one?  What  would  have  been  the  difference?  Is 
not  the  famine  like  the  mighty  rushing  avalanche  down  the 
mountain?  It  is  one  of  the  things  that  came  to  pass.  Who 
brought  the  black  scourge  into  Bombay;  and  who  is  going  to 
stop  it?  Who  brought  the  plague  into  the  city  of  London 
in  1665,  whereby  a  hundred  thousand  lives  were  sacrificed, 
and  the  streets  heaped  with  dead  bodies  too  numerous  for 
the  hands  of  the  living  to  cover  with  soil?  The  black 
death  came  to  pass. 

Well,  we  can  rejoice  here  in  the  thought  that  there  is  a 
wiser  power,  as  well  as  a  mightier  power,  directing  the  forces 
that  work  over  us  and  through  us,  and  that,  while  we  may 
plan,  God,  after  all,  operates.  That,  then,  is  the  thought. 
Here  was  a  punishment  that  was  sent  upon  these  people. 
This  famine  was  a  direct  visitation  on  the  part  of  God.  They 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  15 

had  sinned,  and  the  famine  was  sent  as  a  direct  mark  of  God's 
disfavor.  A  famine  was  looked  upon  among  the  Jews  as  an 
especially  unfavorable  omen,  as  a  mark  of  God's  intense  dis- 
pleasure. Turn  in  your  books  to  Leviticus,  26th  chapter 
and  19th  verse.  Let  us  see  what  you  have  there.  "And  I 
will  break  the  pride  of  your  power;  and  I  will  make  your 
heaven  as  iron  and  your  earth  as  brass."  There  it  is,  God's 
own  statement.  He  will  send  this  and  that  and  the  other 
thing  to  torment  them  ordinarily,  but  when  they  were  very 
bad,  then  the  famine.  So  that  when  the  famine  came,  it  was 
simply  the  language  of  God  speaking  out  to  them  that  they 
were  very  wicked.  And  the  strange  irony  of  the  thing  is 
that  the  famine  was  in  Bethlehem.  Do  you  know  what 
Bethlehem  means — the  etymology  of  the  word?  "The  house 
of  bread."  And  in  the  house  of  bread,  no  bread;  and  over  in 
Moab,  the  land  of  the  heathen,  to  the  east  of  the  lake,  in  the 
rugged  gullies  of  the  mountain,  lifted  high  almost  to  the 
sky,  there  was  plenty.  Strange  irony.  The  beautiful  valley 
of  David,  that  was  named  the  land  of  bread,  breadless;  and 
in  the  mountain  gullies  to  the  east,  where  only  the  heathen 
went  to  live,  there  was  plenty  and  abundance.  You  can 
build  a  house  in  the  valley,  and  drive  your  poorer  neighbor 
to  the  hillside.  But  God  can  blight  your  luxury,  and  he  can 
bless  the  poor  soil  on  the  hill-farm  of  your  neighbor,  and 
make  it  a  pleasant  habitation  and  a  source  of  fatness  and 
delight  to  him.  You  can  plan  for  the  better  things,  and 
plan  the  poorer  things  for  your  neighbor,  but  God  can  reverse 
your  plans,  and  turn  the  better  into  worse  and  the  worse  into 
better. 

What  do  you  think  a  man  in  Bethlehem  would  say  when 
he  saw  a  Moabite  come  into  that  city?  He  would  say:  "That 
is  a  poor  country,  your  farm;  hard  living  out  there;  why 
don't  you  come  here  and  live  in  a  land  of  fat?  Look  at 
Bethlehem;  look  at  our  magnificent  plains,  our  splendid 
vineyards,  our  abundant  harvest.  How  much  better  off  we 
are!"  Do  you  know  what  a  city  boy  thinks  of  a  country 


16  LECTURES  ON  THE 

boy  when  he  comes  into  the  city  with  a  red  handkerchief 
around  his  neck?  He  thinks:  "I  am  living  better  than  you 
are,"  and  he  looks  at  him  with  disgust.  God  can  make  the 
country  boy  the  ruler  of  the  nation  and  the  city  boy  a  toiler 
in  the  penitentiary.  God  can  send  the  country  boy  to  preach 
his  gospel  in  the  city  and  win  it  to  Christ,  when  the  city  is 
too  weak  and  impotent  to  raise  its  own  voice  and  its  own 
influence  against  its  own  crimes.  And  if  it  were  not  for  the 
steady  stream  of  country  boys  who  stand  in  the  pulpit  and 
in  the  busy  places  of  trade  and  mercantile  pursuits  to  make 
sweet  the  life  of  the  city,  I  would  not  like  to  write,  even  in 
my  fancy,  the  doom  of  a  city  growing  up  on  its  own  self- 
centred  sins.  It  is  the  leaven  of  the  broader  life  from  with- 
out, streaming  into  the  city,  that  sweetens  it  and  makes  it 
wholesome.  And  little  Moab,  that  was  not  much  of  a  coun- 
try in  comparison  with  proud  and  haughty  Judea,  becomes 
a  source  of  food  and  life  to  this  proud  people  when  the  hand 
of  God  settles  upon  them  in  judgment  and  His  winds  cease 
to  blow  and  the  refreshing  rains  to  fall.  Don't  point  your 
finger  at  other  people  with  the  feeling  that  you  are  better 
than  they  are.  You  don't  know  what  to-morrow  morning 
is  going  to  be.  You  had  better  be  glad  that  it  is  no  worse 
with  you,  and  let  other  people  alone.  You  never  know  what 
is  going  to  be  the  outcome  of  to-morrow.  Here,  then,  is 
another  thought.  Why  should  this  famine  have  been  sent? 
For  the  simple  reason  that  every  child  of  God  needs  disci- 
pline. When  we  get  stiff-necked  and  stubborn  and  resolute 
in  our  rebellion,  and  hostile  in  our  attitude,  and  indifferent 
in  our  devotions,  and  independent  in  our  spirit,  then  God 
must  come  with  the  tremendous  discipline  of  famine  and 
fire  and  sword,  and  scourge  us  to  bring  us  again  into  decent 
relations  to  himself. 

Now,  Elimelech  made  a  great  mistake.  •  Not  that  it  is  my 
province  to  criticise  anybody,  but  I  only  say  what  I  think. 
He  ran  away  from  God's  visitation.  He  thought  he  would 
run  over  there  for  bread.  What  did  he  get  for  it?  He  got  a 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  17 

grave  in  Moab.  That  is  all  he  got.  Here  was  a  man  in 
Bethlehem,  with  a  home,  with  a  wife  and  with  children,  and 
the  famine  comes  on,  and  he  runs  away  from  his  home  and 
goes  over  into  Moab  that  he  may  have  bread — takes  his  wife 
and  children  along.  And,  sure  enough,  they  get  the  bread. 
But  what  else  did  he  get  over  there?  Look  at  the  multi- 
plied sorrows  of  that  family.  He  went  to  his  grave.  His 
old  wife  went  begging  back  in  poverty  and  hunger  to  her 
own  people;  his  two  boys  were  buried;  and  one  widow 
turned  indifferently  away  from  her  mother-in-law.  And 
Ruth  is  the  only  one  in  the  whole  lot,  and  she  purely  because 
of  her  beautiful  life,  that  comes  out  of  the  scourge  of  Elim- 
elech's  flight  with  anything  like  credit  to  herself,  with  any- 
thing like  glory  to  God.  It  is  an  awful  thing.  I  want  to 
talk  to  you  a  little  about  this  thing  of  picking  up  and  run- 
ning away  from  God's  judgments.  You  think  you  cannot 
get  on  well  where  you  are.  The  farm  is  going  down,  the  old 
horse  has  got  the  spavin,  the  roof  leaks,  did  not  get  many 
acres  out  last  fall,  and  what  was  out  only  raised  briars  in- 
stead of  wheat.  What  am  I  going  to  do?  "I  am  going  to 
borrow  enough  money  to  go  out  West  and  become  rich.  I 
will  go  out  to  Dakota  or  some  other  place  and  build  a  new 
home/'  What  are  you  doing?  Think  about  that  before  you 
do  it.  Here  is  a  truth  that  ought  to  be  impressed  upon 
the  minds  of  our  people,  that  the  fixedness  of  a  race  meas- 
ures its  development  in  civilization;  that  it  is  the  roving 
propensities  of  people  that  mark  their  barbaric  condition. 
Show  me  a  people  that  flit  and  are  migratory,  that  give  up 
Pennsylvania  for  Dakota,  Ohio  for  Kansas,  Kansas  for 
Louisiana,  who  move  about  just  because  they  can,  and  I  will 
show  you  a  people  that  need  civilizing.  They  have  gone 
back;  they  have  not  learned  that  a  primal  duty  of  every 
man  in  this  world  is.  to  settle,  to  stand  for  something  in  the 
community,  to  live  for  the  glory  of  God  in  the  place  where 
God  puts  him.  Quit  this  running  off.  I  have  no  objection 
to  people  building  up  Dakota,  but  I  confess  to  a  sort  of 


18  LECTURES  ON  THE 

hesitation  about  seeing  our  people  as  a  church  flitting  out 
to  the  borders  of  civilization,  twenty  or  thirty  of  them  mov- 
ing out  to  a  strange  community,  away  from  the  church, 
away  from  divine  worship,  away  from  home,  away  from 
friendship,  out  on  the  borders.  I  say  it  is  a  risky  business. 
It  complexes,  if  I  may  make  a  new  term,  the  work  of  the 
church  many-fold  in  this  country. 

I  often  think  of  the  Quakers.  What  made  them  a  power 
in  the  history  of  this  nation?  They  came  over  here  and 
squatted,  and  sat  on  the  same  soil,  and  they  have  hatched 
out  of  that  the  highest  state  of  fertility,  the  highest  kind 
of  home  life.  They  remained  right  there  by  the  hearth- 
stones of  their  ancestors.  You  don't  find  them  flitting  out 
to  the  borders  of  civilization,  away  from  church  and  people, 
trying  to  make  six  cents  more  than  they  could  have  made  at 
home.  They  have  learned  not  to  sacrifice  the  fruits  of  their 
toil,  the  contentment  and  ease  and  culture  of  their  lives,  for 
a  few  pennies  more  than  they  get  if  they  hold  to  these 
things.  They  have  learned  to  live  above  many  follies,  and 
have  approximated  at  least  the  dignified  attitude  of  a  spir- 
itual community. 

I  want  you  young  people  to  think  about  that — you  are 
going  to  buy  land  after  a  while.  And  if  you  are  not  careful 
you  will  give  up  a  thing  that  has  ninety-nine  elements  of 
good  in  it  because  it  has  one  element  of  bad.  You  will  go 
hunting  eternally  for  a  thing  that  has  not  one  element  of 
bad  in  it,  and  finally  settle  down  to  a  thing  that  has  about 
sixty  elements  of  good  and  forty  of  bad  in  it,  like  Elime- 
lech  in  Moab.  You  will  run  away  from  school  because  the 
hash  is  not  mixed  right.  Everything  else  is  good,  but  that 
one  thing  does  not  suit  you.  You  will  run  away  from  your 
home  because  your  father  wants  you  to  farm  another  year 
and  you  do  not  want  to.  Although  everything  else  is  there, 
home  and  church  and  father  and  mother,  you  will  run  away 
out  West.  And  you  girls  chafe  and  fret  in  your  home  life, 
and  want  it  better.  Nearly  every  man  and  woman  in  this 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  19 

world  feels  that  they  would  like  to  better  their  condition. 
They  would  like  to  get  into  a  better  job  than  they  have. 
We  want  better  things.  My  good  friends,  did  you  ever  stop 
to  think  that,  perhaps,  discontent  with  the  position  you  now 
hold  is  God's  hand  upon  you,  disciplining  you  into  power 
in  that  place?  When  you  leave  a  place  and  give  up  a  posi- 
tion and  take  to  a  new  one,  do  it  because  you  have  outgrown 
it,  because  you  are  master  of  the  thing  you  have  given  up, 
and  not  because  you  have  failed  in  it.  Outgrow  it;  don't 
let  it  outgrow  you.  I  don't  know  just  how  much  I  ought  to 
talk  about  this,  nor  to  what  extent  one  can  charge  this  upon 
poor  old  Elimelech;  but  he  did  get  up  from  his  home  land 
and  run  after  bread.  And  I  have  known  scores  of  other 
people  that  have  done  just  so.  And  he  found  a  grave  in  a 
heathen  land.  And  what  you  will  find,  and  what  these 
other  people  will  find,  I  do  not  know.  But  I  question  the 
wisdom  and  the  value  of  this  everlasting  running  around 
after  new  things. 


20  LECTURES  ON  THE 


LECTUEE  II. 

In  the  study  of  this  first  chapter  I  want  to  impress  upon 
you  one  or  two  things  that  seem  to  he  involved  in  the  first 
verse.  The  last  thought  that  we  considered  was  the  spirit 
of  discontent  that  seems  to  take  hold  of  us,  and  that  drives 
.us  from  time  to  time  into  such  a  state  of  mind  that  we  are 
willing  to  make  almost  any  sacrifice  of  present  conditions 
in  the  hope  that  by  doing  that  we  will  better  our  conditions. 
So  we  pack  up  and  move  and  shift  and  run  around.  I  want 
to  impress  again  this  one  thought — upon  what  a  little  turn 
we  make  such  decisions.  It  was  simply  an  objection  on  the 
part  of  Adam  to  one  prohibition  in  Eden  that  drove  him  out 
of:  the  presence  of  God.  The  man  had  ten  thousand  things 
•that  were  right  and  pleasing  and  satisfactory,  but  just  be- 
cause he  could  not  have  ten  thousand  and  one  things,  he 
objected,  and  out  he  went.  What  would  you  call  that  sort 
of  game  if  children  were  to  play  it?  You  would  say  it  is 
childish  or  foolish.  And  yet  we  play  the  child  when  we  are 
older  than  children.  And  we  go  out  into  the  land  of  Moab 
when  we  might  have  stayed  in  the  land  of  promise.  The 
narrow  way  is  not  always  attractive  to  us.  The  hard  test 
that  Jesus  put  to  the  inquirer,  "Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and 
follow  me,"  makes  living  in  the  narrow  way  hard  for  some 
people.  And  so  they  refuse  to  do  that,  and  they  go  out  into 
the  fields  of  Moab,  where  everything  looks  abundantly  fair, 
and  they  forget  that  the  land  of  fairness  may  be  to  them  a 
land  of  death,  and  the  land  of  famine  abandoned  may  be, 
indeed,  to  them  a  land  of  fatness  and  of  promise. 

We  have  in  the  second  verse  a  picture  of  the  exodus  of 
the  family;  the  family  changes  its  place  of  abode.  The  hus- 
band goes,  and  the  wife  and  the  two  children.  Now,  it 
speaks  something  for  the  character  of  Elimelech  that  he 
could  take  his  whole  family  with  him  when  he  decided  to 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  21 

change.  It  showed  that  there  was  a  recognition  in  the  fam- 
ily of  the  father's  will.  And  so  the  father,  deciding  to  make, 
the  change  of  location,  takes  with  him,  apparently  without 
protest,  the  entire  household.  The  whole  family  goes.  It 
is  a  pretty  picture  for  one  to  stop  and  contemplate  - —  a 
united  family.  The  wife  says,  "If  you  go  I  will  go  with 
you;  you  know  better  than  I;  I  will  go  along,"  submitting; 
not  setting  up  an  arbitrary  will  against  the  judgment  of  the 
father.  The  boys  submit  as  boys  do  not  always  do,  and 
decide  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  their  father  even  in  his 
changed  position.  So  out  they  go.  And  the  fact  that  they 
all  went,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  matter  that  places  upon  the 
father  a  tremendous  responsibility.  For  now  he  must  an- 
swer for  his  own  change  of  position  and  for  the  effect  of  that 
upon  the  wife  and  upon  the  children.  We  forget  sometimes, 
when  we  make  a  change,  that  we  are  really  choosing,  not 
only  our  own  future,  but  a  future  for  others  as  well.  We 
must  never  shrink  from  the  thought  nor  refuse  to  face  the 
responsibility  for  the  effect  of  that  change  upon  others  who 
are  obliged  to  change  with  us.  That  must  always  be  taken 
into  account  and  considered  as  one  of  the  essential  responsi- 
bilities that  rest  upon  the  acting  spirit  and  responsible  head 
in  any  move.  They  start  for  Moab. 

What  a  journey  it  must  have  been,  eastward  by  Jerusalem, 
and  down  over  the  plain  and  across  the  valley  of  the  Jordan 
and  over  into  the  land  of  Moab!  I  think  it  would  have  been 
an  interesting  thing  to  have  followed  that  family  in  that 
exodus;  to  have  studied  the  mixed  emotions  of  the  four  per- 
sons who  constituted  the  family  in  their  exodus.  How  the 
father  must  have  felt,  how  the  mother  must  have  felt,  how 
the  sons  must  have  felt,  in  surrendering  the  home  and  home 
associations  and  the  land  of  their  God,  and  going  out  into 
a  strange  land,  into  a  heathen  land,  and  simply  for  the  one 
purpose  of  winning  with  greater  ease  bread  for  the  table, 
comfort  for  the  body.  That  decision  to  go  influenced  the 
whole  after-life  of  each  of  the  four  of  them.  There  was 


22  LECTURES  ON  THE 

no  taking  back  or  reconsidering  after  the  choice  was  made. 
And  every  one  of  the  family  suffered  by  reason  of  the  deci- 
sion of  the  one.  Every  one  was  affected  by  the  choice  of 
the  one,  and  all  had  to  share  in  the  burden  of  responsibility 
that  rested  primarily  upon  the  father  who  determined  to  go. 
After  a  false  step  like  this — for  I  think  we  may  take  it  that 
God  intends  to  teach  that  the  movement  outward  from  the 
land  of  promise  was  distinctly  a  false  step  in  the  life  of  this 
family — God's  mercy  still  followed  them,  but  followed  tem- 
pered with  vengeance,  and  punishment  was  measured  out 
upon  the  family  for  this  act.  There  is  comfort  in  the  fact  that 
God  will  descend  even  into  the  land  of  Moab  and  hear  our 
calls  for  help,  and  watch  over  us  there,  and  answer  our 
prayers.  If  we  earnestly  call  to  him  even  in  heathen  places 
and  places  of  sin,  he  has  promised  to  be  with  us  always. 
They  are  therefore  to  be  looked  at  in  the  light  of  wanderers 
from  God.  And  in  that  respect  they  simply  typify  the  com- 
mon experience  of  thousands  of  us.  We  go  from  the 
righteous  training  of  the  home,  from  the  prayer-meeting 
where,  as  children,  we  were  carried  by  loving  parents,  from 
the  church  service  where  we  were  trained  to  sit  and  listen, 
out  into  the  world,  away  from  the  family  altar,  away  from 
the  prayer-meeting,  away  from  the  services  of  the  public 
sanctuary,  wanderers  from  God.  Many  of  us  who  sit  here 
this  afternoon  are  not  half  as  devoted  to  the  services  of  the 
church  as  we  were  when  we  were  children.  We  have  gone 
out.  We  have  lost  something  of  the  early  life  that  came 
from  the  training  of  godly  ancestors.  We  are  in  Moab;  and 
we  must  suffer  for  our  wanderings,  just  as  they  suffered  for 
their  wanderings.  People  do  come  back  sometimes.  Some- 
times empty,  as  did  the  Prodigal,  sometimes  in  bitterness, 
as  did  Naomi,  and  sometimes  they  never  return,  as  in  the 
case  of  Elimelech  and  his  two  sons.  For  you  must  bear  in 
mind  that  of  the  four  who  went  out,  only  one  returned,  and 
she  in  such  absolute  sorrow  that  she  was  anxious  for  her 
name  to  be  changed,  and  so  changed  that  her  neighbors, 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  23 

wondering,,  said,  "Is  this  Naomi?"  Here  was  the  hand  of 
God  touching  this  family  and  breaking  it  into  shreds,  and 
sending  a  shattered  fragment  back  in  sorrow  and  distress 
to  start  over  again  the  long  series  of  struggles  to  build  up  a 
home  and  a  righteous  career. 

The  first  thing  I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  specifi- 
cally is  in  the  third  verse — the  first  break  in  the  family 
circle.  They  all  got  over  into  the  land  of  Moab.  And  their 
experience  there  at  the  first  must  have  been  satisfactory. 
They  went  for  bread;  they  got  it.  The  third  verse  reveals 
the  first  tragedy  in  the  family,  the  first  breach  in  the  family 
circle.  And  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  little 
family,  when  they  sat  down  in  the  evening-time,  after  the 
toil  of  the  day,  there  was  a  vacant  chair  by  the  fireside. 
Father  is  gone!  They  had  buried  him  in  a  strange  land, 
among  heathen  people,  under  the  shadow  of  heathen  gods. 
I  don't  know  of  anything,  after  all,  more  tragic  than  to 
think  of  the  sad  end  of  a  man  like  Elimelech,  a  man  of 
influence  and  honor  and  power  in  his  own  place,  going  out 
to  Moab  and  dying  there.  He  is  buried  alone,  and  is  for- 
gotten both  at  home  and  abroad.  And  that  is  the  tragic  end 
of  his  bad  choice,  in  the  moment  when  God's  hand  in  the 
famine  was  laid  upon  his  home  place  for  his  own  good,  for 
the  reproving  of  the  sins  of  the  community,  and  for  their 
return  to  righteousness  and  God.  Take  an  old  tree,  and  lift 
it  as  carefully  as  you  please,  and  transplant  it  as  carefully 
as  you  can,  and  it  will  die  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hun- 
dred. Take  one  of  those  beautiful  maples  at  the  College 
gate,  and  haul  it  down  and  plant  it  in  front  of  the  Court 
House,  and  the  chances  against  its  growing  are  exceed- 
ingly great,  and  the  chances  for  its  life  are  exceedingly 
small.  It  is  a  hard  thing  to  transplant  an  old  man  from 
one  place  to  another  and  expect  him  to  flourish  in  the  new 
condition.  If  you  have  a  father  who  has  lived  for  fifty 
years  on  the  farm,  it  would  be  almost  criminal  for  you,  his 
child,  to  drag  his  gray  hairs  and  bent  form  from  the  scenes 


24  LECTURES  ON  THE 

of  his  life  into  the  town,  simply  because  it  suits  you  better 
to  take  care  of  him  there  than  it  does  out  on  the  farm. 
Think  about  this.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that 
you  ought  to  do  for  your  father,  it  is  to  make  him  com- 
fortable; and  one  of  the  things  that  you  can  do  for  your 
mother  is  to  make  her  comfortable  in  the  place  where  her 
heart  grew  and  her  life  nourished,  and  where  all  her  affec- 
tions are  centred.  I  never  like  to  see  a  young  couple  start- 
ing out  into  life,  and  choosing  a  career,  dragging  their  par- 
ents out  with  them  into  the  new  career.  How  the  old  folks 
must  suffer  in  silence  because  of  such  a  change  as  that!: 
Don't  do  that  sort  of  thing.  One  of  the  duties  of  a  child  is 
to  honor  his  father  and  mother;  one  of  the  ways  of  honoring 
them  is  to  make  them  comfortable  in  the  place  where  they; 
can  find  comfort.  It  was  a  hard  thing  for  the  old  man  when 
he  went  over  there  and  died.  He  could  not  stand  the  trans- 
planting. 

He  did  not  go  there  to  die.  He  went  there  for  bread;  but 
he  got  the  very  thing  he  did  not  expect  to  get.  Bringing  to 
our  minds  the  lesson  of  the  uncertainty  that  invests  every 
life — uncertainty  as  to  its  circumstances,  uncertainty  as  to 
its  character,  uncertainty  as  to  its  continuance.  We  cannot 
escape  these  uncertainties,  we  cannot  prevent  them.  You 
will  not  do  in  this  world,  in  spite  of  all  your  planning,  the 
things  that  you  intended  to  do.  You  will  not  live  the  kind 
of  life  that  you  have  resolved  to  live.  You  will  not  live  the 
number  of  days  that  you  would  like  to  live.  This  uncer- 
tainty faces  all  of  us.  There  is  nothing  in  this  world  that 
gives  one  more  cause  for  thought  than  the  way  his  life  is 
ordered,  as  opposed  to  the  way  he  would  order  it.  Take, 
your  pencil,  and  in  your  memory  go  back  two  years,  and 
draw  how  you  had  planned  to  live  the  past  two  years — draw- 
a  line  along  to  show  how  it  was  to  be,  and  then  draw  another 
line  to  show  how  you  did  live.  How  different  it  has  been! 
Bid  you  ever  think  of  that?  Did  you  think  about  how 
absolutely  unlike  the  way  you  intended  things  to  be  they 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  25 

really  are?  Who  knows?  That  comes  to  me  with  increas- 
ing force  as  I  learn  from  day  to  day  of  the  career  of  the 
boys  and  girls  that  used  to  be  at  Juniata  College  here  with 
me.  Let  us  go  back  fifteen  years;  there  were  a  lot  of  people 
in  the  school.  I  can  remember  nearly  all  of  them.  And 
not  one  of  those  living  to-day  has  had  anything  like  the 
kind  of  an  experience  that  he  contemplated  or  wished  for. 
It  has  been  so  different!  In  some  cases  so  much  worse,  in 
some  cases  so  much  better,  than  they  had  occasion  to  expect, 
that  nobody  in  this  world  has  a  right  to  say  that  he  cani 
order  for  a  single  day  of  his  existence  the  purpose  of  his 
life.  "Man's  goings  are  of  the  Lord;  how  can  a  man  then, 
understand  his  own  way?"  God  disposes  of  our  careers,, 
and  our  lives  are  not  what  we  would  have  them  to  be,i 
And  here  we  have  but  a  type  of  every  life's  disappointment. 
Going  for  one  thing,  receiving  another;  studying  for  five 
years  in  school  to  become  a  teacher,  and  never  teaching; 
planning  for  ten  years  to  become  a  physician,  and  never 
practicing  the  profession;  praying  for  five  years  to  become 
a  missionary,  and  never  becoming  one;  fighting  for  five 
years  against  the  spirit  of  God,  and  joining  the  church  at 
the  end;  boasting  of  our  smartness  and  infidelity  for  a  min- 
ute, and  joining  the  church  at  the  end  of  our  boast.  You 
know  nothing  whatever  of  the  ordering  of  your  life.  And 
what  a  blessing  it  is  that  God  providentially  keeps  from  us • 
anything  like  an  adequate  knowledge  of  what  life  is  going 
to  be  for  us  for  the  years  to  come!  I  think  if  a  flash-light, 
could  reveal  the  experiences  that  are  before  me  for  a  year 
to  come,  that  it  would  cause  us  to  give  up  in  despair  and 
die  of  a  broken  heart  to-day. 

You  don't  know  what  you  have  to  face;  neither  did  this 
woman,  neither  did  this  man,  neither  does  any  one  know, 
what  God's  providence  has  in  store  with  reference  to  the 
future,  any  more  than  we  did  know  what  it  was  with  refer- 
ence to  our  past.  How  little  we  know  of  life,  how  less  we 
know  of  death,  and  how  infinitely  less  we  know  of  destiny 


26  LECTURES  ON  THE 

after  death.  We  know  that  Elimelech  lived.  We  have 
learned  of  the  kind  of  life  he  lived.  We  only  know  that  he 
died.  What  became  of  him  after  death?  Who  knows?  The 
Bible  is  silent.  Man  lives  and  man  dies,  and  we  bury  him. 
The  future  state — who  knows  the  next  page  in  his  history? 
Who  knows?  God  only  knows  that.  "If  a  man  die,  shall 
he  live  again?"  How  little  we  know  about  our  own  destiny, 
about  the  events  which  shall  enter  into  our  own  lives  in  the 
years  to  come.  It  is  said  that  an  old  Indian  chief  down  in 
the  southern  part  of  the  United  States  ran  away  with  his 
tribe  from  a  fire  that  swept  across  the  prairie,  until  he  came 
to  a  river,  where  he  planted  his  staff  and  said,  in  his  lan- 
guage, "Alabama/'  which  means  "here  we  may  rest."  But 
he  had  scarcely  put  up  his  tepee  and  swung  his  hammock 
in  his  wigwam,  until  hostile  Indians  came,  and  the  place 
which  he  had  chosen  for  rest  became  the  place  of  his  own 
murder  and  the  annihilation  of  his  tribe.  You  cannot  enter 
a  place  and  say,  "Here  I  am  secure."  Fleeing  from  one  fate, 
you  face  another — running  out  of  Bethlehem  to  get  away 
from  the  famine,  and  entering  into  Moab  to  find  death.  So 
experience  runs  in  the  history  of  every  life. 

Then  take  this  thought,  which  I  think  every  man  who 
undertakes  to  plan  a  home  ought  to  keep  in  mind — how 
long  are  you  going  to  live?  Write  down  on  a  piece  of  paper 
now  how  long  you  are  sure  you  are  going  to  live.  How  long 
did  you  write?  How  many  could  write  twenty  years?  How 
many  could  write  twenty  minutes  in  absolute  certainty? 
Here  is  the  thought.  Before  you  establish  a  home  and  take 
a  wife  and  children  into  any  place  in  this  world,  don't  you 
think  that  you  ought  to  consider  the  possibility  that  death 
may  take  you  away  in  a  moment,  and  leave  your  wife  and 
children  helpless  there  in  the  place  you  have  chosen?  A 
man  ought  to  choose  such  a  place  as  would  be  at  least  decent 
and  fitting  for  those  of  his  family  who  survive  him.  And 
yet  I  doubt  if  a  single  man  ever  planned  a  home  with  that 
thought  prominently  in  view.  He  thinks  about  the  condi- 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  27 

tion  of  the  land,  the  nearness  of  the  market,  the  price  of 
wheat,  and  maybe,  if  he  has  a  little  common  sense  about 
him,  he  thinks  about  the  readiness  of  access  to  the  school 
and  the  church;  but  he  does  not  give  a  thought  to  what 
might  happen  to  his  wife  and  children  if  he  were  suddenly 
called  away,  leaving  them  in  the  place  he  has  chosen. 
Notice  the  gradual  process  by  which  this  woman  was  be- 
reaved. First  she  lost  her  husband.  Then  she  had  her  boys 
to  comfort  her.  Then  she  lost  her  boys.  Then  she  had  her 
daughters-in-law  to  comfort  her.  Then  she  lost  one  of  them, 
and  had  the  increasing  love  and  devotion  of  the  other  to 
comfort  her.  Suppose  that  Naomi  had  lost  husband  and 
sons  and  daughter-in-law  at  one  stroke.  It  would  have  been 
a  tremendous  affliction.  It  was  bad  as  it  was.  It  was  infi- 
nitely better  that  God  ordered  a  sequence  of  time  in  her 
afflictions.  He  laid  upon  her  the  hand  of  affliction,  but  also 
extended  to  her  the  hand  of  comfort  in  each  trial  she  had 
to  face. 

She  had  hardly  gotten  up  from  mourning  for  her  hus- 
band until  the  wedding-bells  sounded  in  her  home.  Look 
at  the  fourth  verse — from  the  shroud  to  the  wedding-gar- 
ment! There  was  a  wedding  out  there  in  Moab  soon  after 
the  funeral.  How  soon  after  you  don't  know.  But  it  was 
not  long.  Notice  how  it  comes  right  after.  Elimelech  dies 
and  is  buried.  Then  what?  The  boys  get  married.  That  is 
the  history  of  all  human  experience.  After  you  are  dead 
you  will  not  be  missed  half  as  much  as  you  think.  Those 
that  love  you  will  bury  you  out  of  sight  to-day,  and  go  on 
to  plan  for  their  own  comfort  and  future  to-morrow.  The 
boys  were  no  worse  than  a  multitude  of  others.  They  bury 
their  father  in  sadness  and  pain  to-day,  and  to-morrow 
marry  and  plan  for  the  future. 

What  is  the  use  of  our  worrying  and  fussing  and 
arrogating  to  ourselves  important  thoughts,  and  feeling 
that  we  are  indispensable?  We  drop  out,  and  the  next 
day  the  marriage-bells  ring.  Our  life  is  a  memory  that 


28  LECTURES  ON  THE 

scarcely  affects  the  life  that  moves  on  from,  day  to 
day.  These  marriages  were  natural,  marriages  made  in 
the  land  where  people  live.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the  people 
that  get  married  in  this  world  get  married  for  geograph-r 
ical  reasons.  You  will  marry  for  geographical  reasons. 
That  is,  you  get  to  know  a  little  circle  near  you,  and 
the  geography  of  convenience  and  nearness  determines 
your  choice.  How  few  people  break  away  from  that.  Take 
your  family  into  Moab,  and  you  can  put  it  down  as  a  fact 
that  in  Moab  they  will  marry.  Move  out  into  Colorado,  take 
your  young  children  along,  and  you  will  have  a  family  there, 
sons-in-law  and  daughters-in-law.  Jewish  boys,  sons  of  Elim- 
elech,  marry  the  daughters  of  Moab,  Orpah  and  Euth.  Was 
it  right  that  these  boys  should  marry  heathen  wives,  against 
the  express  command  in  the  Old  Testament  law  that  this 
should  not  be  done?  I  have  neither  time  nor  inclination 
to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  Tightness  of  that.  But  I 
have  time  to  say  that  it  is  exceedingly  inexpedient.  You 
may  marry  outside  of  your  own  church  affiliations,  but  it  is 
a  risky  thing  to  do.  I  don't  know  how  that  affects  you,  and 
I  don't  care.  But  this  word  of  advice  on  that  question:  If 
you  want  to  live  happily,  you  had  better  belong  to  one 
church,  all  of  you  that  live  in  one  family.  It  will  save  a 
great  many  family  jars  and  a  lot  of  broken  and  bruised  feel- 
ings. Here  is  a  young  man  that  says,  "I  will  marry  a  young 
girl,  and  then  I  will  convert  her  over  to  my  own  faith;  she 
will  be  all  right  afterward."  Ninety  times  out  of  a  hundred 
that  works  the  other  way.  Instead  of  you  bringing  her  in, 
she  will  take  you  out.  She  may  be  the  weaker  vessel,  but 
she  is  often  the  stronger  power. 

Again,  I  think  it  is  a  tremendous  risk  for  any  young  girl 
to  marry  a  man  outside  of  the  church,  in  the  hope  that, 
because  you  marry  him,  he  will  join  the  church.  In  the 
first  place,  he  will  not  do  it;  and  in  the  second  place,  he 
ought  not  to  do  it.  He  ought  not  to  join  the  church  for 
your  sake,  but  for  Christ's  sake.  And  if  he  will  not  do  it 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  29 

before  for  a  right  and  a  proper  purpose,  you  can  set  it  down 
'that  he  will  not  do  it  afterward.  What  shall  I  say  of  those 
foolish  young  people  who  marry  sots  and  idiots,  in  the  hope 
of  reforming  them?  You  had  better  pick  a  good  husband; 
because,  if  you  get  the  best,  you  won't  have  a  better  one  than 
you  deserve  if  you  are  good  yourself.  Here  it  turned  out 
well.  Orpah  was  a  good  wife.  Ruth  was  a  noble  woman. 
But  in  the  majority  of  cases  these  things  are  risky.  And  it 
pays  in  the  end,  for  the  comfort  of  your  life  and  your  value 
as  a  Christian  man  in  this  world,  to  make  your  marriage 
associations  along  the  line  of  your  church  affiliations.  This 
is,  moreover,  a  debt  that  you  owe  to  the  church. 

The  second  bereavement  came  quickly.  The  young  men 
die  as  their  father  died.  Here  you  have  a  strangely  sad,  per- 
haps an  unusual,  experience — three  widows  in  one  house-  \ 
hold,  without  a  friend  or  provider.  We  ought  to  be  most 
careful  about  making  those  unions  that  are  never  going  to 
be  broken.  I  suppose  young  people  mostly  think  about  the 
union  of  marriage  as  the  great  thing  in  life.  It  may  end 
suddenly.  It  may  end  disastrously  in  the  survival  of  a  life 
that  is  worse  than  death.  But  you  can  form  an  affiliation 
in  your  youth  that  will  never  end — association  in  the  church 
with  Jesus  Christ,  who  will  be  with  you  always. 

The  awakening  comes  after  this  tremendous  affliction. 
The  old  widow,  with  her  two  daughters-in-law  dependent 
upon  her  for  guidance,  awakens  and  recognizes  her  peculiar 
condition.  She  makes  her  resolve  in  the  sixth  verse,  a 
resolve  upon  which  she  acted.  What  was  the  reason  for  this 
act  of  hers?  She  had  heard  from  home.  It  was  not  in  a  \ 
telegraph  message  nor  in  a  telephone  message.  But,  as 
was  common  in  those  days,  travelers  moving  to  and  fro,  after 
weeks  and  months,  brought  the  news  from  foreign  or  remote 
countries.  I  suppose  that  old  Naomi  had  been  asking  year 
after  year,  as  the  dusty  traveler  had  wandered  into  Moab 
from  Bethlehem,  "How  is  it  at  Bethlehem?"  and  every  time 
she  got  the  answer,  "Famine,  famine  still."  At  the  end  of 


I 


30  LECTURES  ON  THE 

ten  years,  a  messenger  comes  with  the  news  that  there  is 
plenty  again  in  Bethlehem.  Because  she  can  find  bread 
there,  the  old  associations  and  the  old  influences  that  had 
slumbered  for  years  reassert  themselves,  and  she  says,  "I 
will  return  to  Bethlehem."  In  the  seventh  verse  the  pil- 
grimage home  begins.  From  this  time  Euth  leaps  to  the 
front  as  the  great  character  in  the  family  tragedy.  Naomi 
drops  into  the  background  as  a  mere  shadow;  Euth  stands 
out  as  the  great  character  of  the  book.  They  start  together 
on  the  homeward  journey.  And  the  significant  fact  that  I 
want  to  call  your  attention  to  in  connection  with  the  home- 
ward journey  is  this — that  conditions  at  home  may  change  at 
any  time,  and  call  us  without  a  moment's  warning  on  the 
homeward  journey.  When  are  you  going  to  go  home  to  your 
parents?  You  don't  know.  The  telephone  or  the  tele- 
graphic flash  may  call,  and  you  must  go  home  on  the 
next  train.  Conditions  have  changed  there;  there  is  sick- 
ness there,  or  perchance  there  is  death.  You  are  called 
home!  You  never  know  just  when  you  will  be  halted  in 
your  career  and  suddenly  called  home — called  home  to  your 
religious  self,  called  home  to  your  God.  They  start  down 
the  road. 

Here  we  have,  in  this  beginning  of  the  journey  set  forth 
in  the  eighth  verse,  the  first  test  of  affection  between  these 
women.  Here  for  the  first  time  Naomi  opens  her  mouth 
and  speaks.  Naomi  first x  of  all  thinks  of  others  instead  of 
herself,  and  manifests  here  on  the  highway  the  generous 
spirit  that  typifies  the  character  of  her  great  descendant, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  spirit  of  unselfish  devotion  to 
others,  the  spirit  that  made  her  think  of  the  good  of  others 
even  to  her  own  discomfort.  If  I  were  a  painter,  and  had 
power  with  canvas  and  brush  and  colors,  I  would  paint  the 
road  out  from  Moab,  with  the  light  falling  to  the  west,  and 
these  three  women  girded  for  the  journey,  and  I  would  try 
to  read  aright  their  faces,  the  different  emotions  that  I 
think  played  upon  them  as  they  started.  Here  was  Naomi, 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  31 

probably  a  rag  in  her  hand,  containing  in  a  little  tied 
up  bundle  everything  that  she  owned  in  this  world, 
for  she  was  excessively  poor.  There  were  Orpah  and 
Euth  —  young,  sad,  but  resolute.  And  what  would  you 
put  into  the  faces  of  these  three  women  to  show  forth 
the  character  of  each,  and  make  it  unlike  the  others,  and 
tell  the  story  that  the  future  chapters  of  this  wonderful 
story  of  Euth  portrays — the  story  of  the  fading  resolution  of 
Orpah,  the  story  of  the  rising  resolution  of  Euth,  the  story 
of  the  steadfast  Christian  resignation  of  the  old  mother?  I 
would  want  that  picture  before  I  would  want  "The  Ange- 
lus"  or  "The  Gleaners"  or  the  "Breaking  of  Home  Ties."  I 
would  want  that  as  a  painting  in  which  Naomi  would  typify 
the  returning  soul  to  the  home  of  God,  leading  heathen  ones 
with  her  by  the  power  of  love.  What  a  scene;  what  a  paint- 
ing! What  a  travel  that  was  as  they  set  out  on  their  jour- 
ney for  Bethlehem  and  for  bread!  Then  you  have,  as  they 
start,  the  voice  of  Naomi  pronouncing  a  benediction  and  a 
valediction  upon  these  two  daughters-in-law.  Will  you  turn, 
if  you  please,  and  read  it  in  concert? 

"And  Naomi  said  unto  her  two  daughters  in  law,  Go, 
return  each  to  her  mother's  house:  the  Lord  deal  kindly 
with  you,  as  ye  have  dealt  with  the  dead  and  with  me.  The 
Lord  grant  you  that  ye  may  find  rest,  each  of  you  in  the 
house  of  her  husband.  Then  she  kissed  them;  and  they 
lifted  up  their  voice,  and  wept."  That  is  a  tender  utter- 
ance: she  prays  to  God  that  they  may  find  rest  each  in  the 
house  of  her  husband.  And  then  there  was  a  good-bye  in 
the  last  line.  How  was  that?  I  want  you  to  think  of  the 
simple  gift  of  that  old  mother-in-law.  She  could  not  give 
them  money,  she  could  not  give  them  property,  she  could 
not  give  them  any  gift  as  they  went  back.  She  could  only 
give  them  a  kiss.  It  was  not  much,  but  everything  that  her 
old  soul  could  give.  She  was  as  poor  as  Peter,  when  he  was 
,  entering  into  the  temple,  and  was  asked  an  alms,  and  said, 
"Silver  and  gold  have  I  none;  but  such  as  I  have  give  I 


32  LECTURES  ON  THE 

thee."  She  gave  them  the  only  thing  that  she  had — a  bless- 
ing from  a  tender,  loving  heart.  This  she  gave  to  them, 
forgetful  of  her  own  self  and  her  own  sufferings  as  she 
would  have  to  trudge  alone  to  her  abandoned  home  and  her 
own  unhappy  place. 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  33 


LECTURE  III. 

In  the  eleventh,  twelfth  and  thirteenth  verses  is  the  sec- 
ond test  of  the  devotion  of  these  women.  They  both  stood 
the  first  trial.  Now  Naomi  gives  them  a  second — -a  delicate 
hint  that  if  they  follow  her  to  her  country  and  away  from 
Moab,  their  country,  they  will  find  no  comfort  there  what- 
ever. She  can't  give  to  them  sons  that  will  be  husbands  to 
them.  Neither  can  they  hope  to  marry  into  families  of  any 
respectability  under  the  Mosaic  law,  since  they  are  heathen. 
There  was  no  hope  of  comfort,  only  the  prospect  of  sitting 
in  distress,  and  dying  in  broken-heartedness.  She  bids  them 
go  back:  "Return  to  your  own  land  and  be  content  there, 
for  in  my  land  there  is  no  prospect  for  you  whatever/' 
Really,  here  is  a  crisis.  In  making  the  decision  here  between 
going  and  returning,  it  is  really  a  choice  between  going 
back  to  Moab  and  returning  to  the  old  heathen  gods,  or 
going  over  into  Bethlehem  and  accepting  the  true  God.  It 
means  what  god  they  should  choose,  what  religion  they 
should  espouse,  what  shall  be  their  whole  after  life.  Orpah 
evidently  understood  that  this  was  a  choice  of  great  signifi- 
cance to  all  her  future,  because  you  will  notice  that  she 
returned,  or  went  back  to  her  gods.  She  did  not  go  back  to 
her  home;  she  went  back  to  choose  the  religion  that  had 
dominated  her  early  life.  Ruth  gave  up  the  worship  of 
Shemosh,  and  went  over  to  worship  the  God  of  Israel,  the 
God  of  revelation.  The  crisis  then  came  on  this  second 
test.  "Choose  your  religion;  if  you  come  with  me  you  will 
have  to  change  your  religion."  That  was  substantially  the 
statement  given  out  by  the  old  mother-in-law.  In  that  crisis 
Orpah  fails  to  stand  the  test.  Ruth,  on  the  other  hand, 
chose  wisely.  She  stood  the  test. 

The  final  separation  is  one  that  bases  itself  .upon  a  re- 
ligious choice.  I  know  of  nothing  in  this  world  that  ought 


34  LECTURES  ON  THE 

to  determine  the  separation  of  friends  except  religion. 
There  is  nothing  that  I  know  of  that  is  sincerer,  higher, 
more  enduring  than  friendship  between  people,  the  affection 
of  families  for  each  other,  the  devotion  of  kinsmen  to  each 
other.  Nothing  should  break  that  tie  of  blood  and  kinship 
excepting  a  difference  of  religion.  There  is  nothing  above 
the  family  tie  except  the  church  tie.  A  man  is  called  a  hero 
when  he  gives  up  his  life  and  his  home  for  his  country. 
And  he  is  also  heroic  when  he  adheres  to  his  family  and 
gives  up  his  life  for  that.  And  he  is  more  than  heroic  when 
he  gives  up  everything  for  the  sake  of  religion,  as  did  Ruth 
here  in  this  instance.  Orpah,  then,  in  this  separation,  be- 
comes the  type  of  the  mere  professor  of  religion — the  per- 
son that  follows  in  prosperity,  but  has  no  enduring  basis 
for  following,  so  that  when  the  test  comes  she  falls  away. 
In  the  hour  of  trial,  in  the  hour  of  adversity,  in  the  hour 
when  the  outlook  is  by  no  means  promising,  then  Orpah 
lacked  stability  of  character  and  strength  of  purpose  to 
choose  aright.  Just  as  you,  when  tempted  by  sin,  give  up 
your  profession  of  following,  and  lapse  back  into  idolatry 
and  irreligion  and  inactivity.  Ruth  is  a  type  of  the  Chris- 
tian man  or  woman  whose  affection  is  deeper  than  that  of 
mere  lip-service,  and  whose  life  is  genuine — a  real  Christian 
life.  Notice  the  difference.  Orpah  could  follow  just  as  well 
as  Ruth  under  ordinary  circumstances;  but  in  the  crisis  of 
life  Ruth  triumphs,  Orpah  fails.  It  is  no  use  to  compare 
these  two  characters,  because  they  are  so  absolutely  dissim- 
ilar. And  yet  up  to  the  moment  of  choice  they  were  both 
alike.  Both  had  husbands.  Both  had  buried  their  hus- 
bands. Both  clave  to  their  mother-in-law.  Both  followed 
her  partly  on  the  way  back  to  Bethlehem.  So  far  there  was 
no  difference  between  the  genuine  lover  of  religion  and  the 
mere  professor.  But  when  the  trial  came,  there  was  all  the 
difference  in  the  world.  You  and  I  may  walk  arm  in  arm 
for  ten  years.  So  far  as  the  casual  observer  may  see,  there 
is  no  difference  between  us.  Both  have  the  same  aims.  We 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  35 

follow  the  same  pursuits.  We  are  practically  the  same. 
People  speak  of  us  as  friends  and  as  having  common  im- 
pulses and  common  tendencies  and  common  ends.  But  wait; 
after  a  while  there  comes  a  trial,  and  one  of  us  fails.  Then 
it  is  revealed  to  the  world  that  the  ten  years  of  seeming 
union  were  in  reality  ten  years  in  which  our  livs  were  grow- 
ing wider  and  wider  apart.  And  in  the  end  absolute  separa- 
tion occurs.  There  is  no  comparison  to  be  drawn  between 
the  life  of  Ruth  and  the  life  of  Orpah.  On  the  surface  they 
seem  alike;  really,  they  were  as  remote  as  the  north  is  from 
the  south,  the  east  from  the  west.  Orpah  is  like  a  great  many 
of  you.  You  get  up  on  Sunday  morning  and  wash  your 
faces  and  comb  your  hair  and  put  on  your  clean  clothes  and 
go  to  church.  And  on  Monday  morning  you  forget  that  you 
have  been  to  church  on  Sunday,  and  never  think  of  church 
until  the  next  Sunday  comes.  You  are  formal  Christians. 
You  have  no  interest  in  the  wof£  of  Christ.  You  are  very 
willing  to  be  a  Christian  on  Sunday,  when  it  is  a  natural 
and  easy  thing  to  be  a  Christian — when  it  is  the  accepted 
thing.  But  Ruth  is  the  type  of  the  woman  and  of  the  Chris- 
tian who  steadfastly  remembers  that  the  worship  of  Sunday 
should  be  reflected  in  the  life  of  Monday;  who  really  is  more 
of  a  Christian  on  Monday  than  she  was  on  Sunday,  because 
she  lives  in  quiet  on  Monday,  without  observation,  that 
which  she  could  not  live  without  observation  on  Sunday; 
who  rejoices  more  in  the  hour  of  trial,  because  then  she  can 
live  closer  to  God,  than  in  the  hour  of  prosperity,  when  the 
burden  is  shared  by  others.  There  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  between  these  women.  I  would  not  give  a  fig  for 
the  one;  heaven  has  not  enough  of  wealth  for  the  other. 
You  can  be  an  Orpah  in  your  merely  professional  attitudes 
of  life,  or  you  can  be  a  Ruth  in  the  more  genuine  aspects  of 
life.  In  the  one  case  you  are  not  worth  the  bread  you  eat 
to-day;  in  the  other,  there  is  not  enough  bread  in  the  world 
to  compensate  you  for  your  living.  It  is  the  difference 
between  the  woman  that  returned  and  the  woman  that  clave 


36  LECTURES  ON  THE 

unto  her  mother-in-law.    If  I  were  to  put  it  to  a  vote,  there 
is  no  mean  slave  on  earth  that  would  not  vote  to  select  Ruth 
and  leave  Orpah,  in  the  test.    Nobody  would  think  of  com- 
paring the  women.     No  artist  on  earth  would  ever  paint 
them  with  similar  faces;  no  man  on  earth  would  think  of 
them  with  equal  feelings.     And  yet  I  want  you  to  under- 
stand that  there  was  not  much  difference  between  what  they 
did.    They  probably  cooked  equally  well,  kept  house  equally 
well.     But  the  one  was  true,  the  other  was  not  true.     And 
that  is  the  difference  between  heaven  and  hell  when  you  come 
to  measure  it  in  its  extremity.    What  evidently  you  need  to 
understand  here,  the  thing  that   is   to   be   kept   standing 
before  your  mind  and  mine,  is  that  Ruth's  character  is  the 
one  that  ought  to  fructify  and  enrich  all  Christian  char- 
acters.    We  don't  want  Christians  for  Sunday  and  demons 
for  Monday.    We  want  Christians  that  will  go  with  Christ 
to  the  cross.    Did  you  ever  think  how  easy  it  must  have  been 
to  be  a  follower  of  Christ  on  the  Sunday  before  His  cruci- 
fixion, when  He  rode  into  the  city  with  the  palm  wreaths 
around  Him,  with  the  followers  shouting  Hosanna  to  the 
King,  and  with  the  children  strewing  flowers  in  His  way,  and 
with  the  whole  multitude  evidently  believing  that  here  at 
last  the  Christ  was  coming  to  establish  His  kingdom  upon 
earth?    It  was  an  easy  thing  then  to  shout  and  be  a  follower 
of  Christ.     To  be  a  follower  of  Christ  that  day  meant,  as 
far  as  they  could  see,  immediate  recognition  in  some  great 
high  place  in  the  power  that  was  to  be,  in  the  kingdom  that 
was  to  come.     But  just  wait  until  Friday  of  that  week. 
Where  were  all  these  followers  and  shouters  when  Friday 
came,  and  the  blackness  of  heaven  settled  down  upon  the 
earth  like  a  pall,  and  the  cross  went  up,  and  the  Christ  was 
crucified?     Where  were  they  then?     The  Orpahs  had  gone 
back;  but  the  Ruths  were  at  the  cross,  as  true  in  the  hour  of 
adversity  as  in  the  hour  of  prosperity.    The  real  followers  of 
Christ  followed  Him  to  the  cross,  and  shared  with  Him  in 
the  crucifixion  outrage,  shared  with  Him  in  the  struggles  of 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  37 

death,  and  loved  Him  when  they  had  absolutely  no  hope  of 
any  reward  for  their  love.  Is  .there  any  difference  between 
the  shouter  on  Sunday  and  the  worshiper  on  Friday?  The 
one  Orpah  could  be;  the  other  took  a  Ruth.  I  don't  know 
which  you  are. 

You  will  never  be  anything  like  Ruth  in  this  world,  when 
the  hour  of  trial  conies,  unless  you  do  what  Ruth  evidently 
had  done,  unless  you  school  your  life  by  years  of  training 
into  the  attitude  of  standing  the  test  when  the  test  comes. 
People  are  not  heroes  in  a  flash.  You  don't  do  these  things 
in  a  second.  Ruth  lived  up  to  this  crisis  in  her  life  by  long 
years  of  consecrated  devotion.  And  this  was  the  legitimate 
fruiting,  the  necessary  outgrowth,  the  natural  culmination 
of  the  real  things  of  her  life,  the  inner  impulses  that  had 
fed  her  soul,  and  strengthened  it  for  weeks  and  for  months 
and  for  years.  Orpah,  on  the  other  hand,  had  lived  an  idle, 
thoughtless,  unconsecrated  life.  In  the  test  she  had  no 
reserve  power.  Don't  look  into  my  face  and  tell  me  it  is  a 
matter  of  luck  that  the  one  happened  to  choose  one  way  and 
the  other  happened  to  choose  the  other  way.  It  was  the 
culmination  of  years  of  different  living.  The  one  had  been 
living  piously,  the  other  had  not;  the  one  had  been  living 
nobly,  the  other  had  not;  the  one  had  been  living  heroically, 
the  other  had  not.  When  the  crisis  came,  the  one  was  noble, 
the  one  was  heroic,  because  her  life  had  been  moulded  into 
that.  You  are  going  to  be  great  some  time.  Two  or  three 
of  you  want  to  be  great.  If  so,  prepare  for  it  now.  You 
must  live  for  it  in  the  inner  circles  of  your  soul.  You  must 
sit  and  think,  you  must  kneel  and  pray,  you  must  walk  and 
muse,  you  must  lie  down  and  meditate;  and  then,  in  the 
strength  of  all  that,  your  soul  will  rise  up  in  a  moment  of 
emergency  and  smite  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  and  you 
will  triumph  gloriously.  But  you  can't  do  it  if  you  have  not 
schooled  your  life  for  that  sort  of  thing.  Ruths  are  not 
made  in  a  day. 

The  final  test,  the  great  test,  the  real  test,  which  was  a 


38  LECTURES  ON  THE 

hard  one  for  Ruth,  you  will  find  in  the  sixteenth  verse.  It 
made  it  all  the  harder  for  Kuth  to  make  a  choice  because  of 
the  example  of  Orpah.  How  would  you  feel  if  you  were 
going  somewhere  with  somebody,  and  he  were  to  say:  "I  am 
not  going  any  farther.  That  is  the  limit  of  my  going. 
Good-bye?"  As  that  one  would  turn,  would  it  not  be  a 
strong  string  pulling  at  you  to  turn  likewise?  Suppose  two 
or  three  of  you  were  going  out  here  some  night  to  steal 
apples  from  Mr.  Fouse's  orchard.  I  merely  say  "suppose." 
And  one  of  the  boys,  with  just  a  little  more  manliness  than 
the  rest,  would  say:  "I  am  not  going  there.  I  am  going 
back."  It  would  be  a  strong  string  pulling  at  your  con- 
sciences, a  persuasive  voice  calling  to  you  to  go  back  also. 
There  is  a  piece  of  ice  on  the  river,  thin  and  cracked.  And 
you  say,  "Come  ahead;  let's  go  over  this."  But  some  one 
else  says,  "No,  I  am  not  going  into  danger."  Then  you  too 
would  hesitate,  would  you  not?  But  Ruth  did  not  hesitate. 
She  went  right  ahead,  ready  for  the  thing  she  had  resolved 
to  do,  regardless  of  the  example  of  Orpah.  That  proves  the 
strength  of  soul  in  the  woman. 

Half  of  you  are  living  as  you  are  because  of  other  people. 
There  is  no  self-centred  purpose  in  you.  You  are  like  a  flock 
of  sheep;  one  runs  through  the  gap,  and  you  all  follow.  You 
are  like  a  flock  of  birds  on  the  wing;  one  flies,  and  the  others 
fly.  The  number  of  persons  with  independent  lives  and 
independent  motives  is  exceeding  small.  If  all  of  your 
companions  were  to  drop  out  of  the  game,  you  too  would 
stop  playing.  You  have  no  backbone.  You  have  not  the 
first  elements  of  Ruth's  character.  You  are  in  the  church, 
perhaps.  If  every  man  and  woman  in  the  church  were  to 
leave  it,  you  would  go  with  them.  You  would  not  stand 
up  like  Ruth  for  what  you  thought  was  right.  You  have  a 
multiplicity  of  judgment;  you  have  no  originality.  Ruth 
set  out  here  against  the  advice  of  her  mother-in-law  and 
the  example  of  her  sister-in-law;  and  she  did  the  thing  that 
was  right.  That  makes  her  heroic.  I  don't  care  where  you 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  39 

find  that  kind  of  person,  it  is  the  power  to  stand  right  up 
and  say  and  do  the  thing  you  believe  to  be  right  that  makes 
heroes.  That  is  the  stuff  God  needs  in  you  and  me  to  build 
us  into  anything  like  decent  lives.  That  lacking,  it  is  frail 
material  on  which  to  build  anything.  Who  is  a  back-slider; 
what  kind  of  Christians  are  these  that  slide  into  religion 
to-day  and  slide  out  of  it  to-morrow?  Who  are  they?  They 
are  people  without  any  individuality;  who,  when  others 
shout  with  them,  shout  for  the  right,  but  when  the  world 
blows  against  them,  they  keep  quiet  and  slink  into  corners; 
who  have  no  power  to  bear  adversity,  nor  strength  of  pur- 
pose to  accomplish  anything.  You  may  come  here  to  school 
to  get  an  education,  but  you  have  no  strength  of  purpose. 
You  will  not  sit  down  and  think  for  a  year;  you  have  not 
the  patience,  you  have  not  the  grit  to  do  that.  You  are  a 
coward.  Some  of  you  won't  stay  two  years;  some  of  you 
won't  stay  three.  Somewhere  along  the  line  is  the  measure 
of  your  value  to  yourself.  When  do  you  give  up?  What 
makes  a  bulldog  absolutely  indispensable  to  his  owner?  His 
value  is  determined  by  his  unrelenting  grip.  He  takes  hold 
and  stays  there.  That  is  a  quality  in  human  nature  that 
counts.  If  you  want  to  master  your  books,  if  you  want  to 
become  a  mathematician  or  anything  else  in  this  world,  you 
must  take  hold  and  stick.  That  is  the  sum  of  it.  It  is  mak- 
ing up  your  mind  that  you  are  going  to  do  one  thing,  and 
then  sticking  to  that  purpose.  I  had  a  friend;  he  did  not 
live  far  from  where  I  am  standing.  He  was  in  nine  or  ten 
businesses  every  year  —  that  is,  in  his  mind.  He  would 
teach  one  day,  and  then  he  would  take  a  notion  that  he 
ought  to  have  a  shoe  store.  He  would  look  into  that  for  a 
week,  and  then  he  would  think  of  studying  medicine.  When 
that  was  over,  he  would  think  probably  that  the  gun  business 
was  the  one  for  him.  What  he  wanted  was  to  become  a  mas- 
ter of  shooting-irons,  and  own  a  store  in  which  he  could  sell 
revolvers  and  shotguns.  What  was  the  matter  with  him? 
Simply  this:  he  lacked  continuity  of  purpose.  He  could 


40  LECTURES  ON  THE 

not  stick  to  anything.  When  I  was  a  boy,  I  used  to  see, 
when  I  went  down  to  the  river  in  the  winter,  little  bunches 
of  weeds  rolled  up  like  a  ball.  They  would  get  on  the  ice, 
and  the  wind  would  come,  and  you  could  see  them  go  whirl- 
ing here  and  there.  Did  you  ever  see  them?  Like  crazy 
idiots  they  would  go,  worse  than  Zigzag  Ike  on  a  holiday. 
No  purpose  at  all  in  their  wanderings.  Simply  the  victims 
of  the  whim  that  carried  them.  We  laugh  at  the  weeds. 
There  are  many  of  us  that  are  living  as  erratic  lives  as  the 
weeds  driven  by  the  wind.  And  if  the  weed  could  scratch 
its  path  upon  the  Tee,  and  tell  its  wanderings,  and  you  could 
scratch  your  path  and  tell  yours,  yours  would  be  worse  than 
the  weed's.  An  absolute  determination  to  do  the  duty  she 
had  to  perform  is  what  made  Ruth  glorious.  That  is  why- 
she  did  not  return.  That  is  why  she  clave  unto  her  mother- 
in-law,  and  triumphed  in  these  three  tests  in  spite  of  Orpah's 
example. 

If  I  had  time,  I  would  tell  you  not  to  be  influenced  very 
much  by  other  people.  It  does  not  pay.  I  mean  by  that, 
when  you  are  prompted  to  do  right,  when  you  are  put  to  the 
test,  and  the  temptation  comes  from  others  who  are  not  as 
conscientious  as  you  are,  who  are  not  as  anxious  to  do  right 
as  you  are,  and  who  are  willing  to  live  below  what  your 
conscience  teaches  you  you  ought  to  be,  pay  very  little  atten- 
tion to  those  people.  Live  on  in  your  devotion  to  God. 

"Here,"  says  Ruth,  "I  will  register  something  before  hea- 
ven and  before  you,  Naomi,  that  will  settle  this  whole  mat- 
ter." Turn  in  your  Books  to  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
verses,  to  show  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  sublime 
utterance  in  the  whole  Book  of  Ruth.  I  know  of  nothing 
more  beautiful  than  this  sentiment  of  Ruth's.  It  is  Ruth  at 
her  best.  It  is  her  graduation  day.  She  has  taken  her  long 
course  of  affliction  and  trial,  and  now  she  comes  up  here 
and  gives  expression  to  her  life  purpose.  How  many  of  you 
know  the  words — can  repeat  them  from  memory?  I  think 
that,  next  to  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  fen  Command- 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  41 

ments,  and  perhaps  the  23d  Psalm,  I  know  of  nothing  more 
worthy  to  be  committed  to  memory  than  these  words  of  Ruth. 
Notice  several  things  in  connection  with  her  statement. 
It  is  a  resolution  made  in  early  life.  Ruth  was  still  a  young 
woman.  She  is  spoken  of  as  a  damsel  by  Boaz;  a  widow,  but 
still  young;  probably  not  out  of  her  twenties.  Some  of  the 
commentators  agree  in  their  belief  that  Ruth  was  about 
twenty-four  or  twenty-five  years  of  age  when  she  did  this. 
It  is  recorded  of  Beza,  a  churchman  of  medieval  times,  that 
he  blessed  God,  first,  for  the  gift  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ; 
second,  that  he  was  converted  to  the  religion  of  Christ  at 
the  age  of  sixteen.  He  wanted  it  young  in  life.  I  like  the 
•spirit  that  induces  you  in  early  life  to  make  up  your  mind 
that  you  are  going  to  do  something,  that  you  are  going  to 
be  something,  that  you  are  going  to  live  for  something.  I 
measure  the  value  of  your  life  in  the  future  by  the  kind  of 
thing  you  choose  to  adhere  to.  I  have  a  right  to  do  that. 
Here,  then,  you  have  an  early  choice.  It  was  made  in  youth. 
A  choice  for  life,  a  choice  for  death.  She  says,  "I  will  live 
with  you,  and  die  with  you,  and  be  buried  with  you."  It  was 
a  choice  for  God  and  a  choice  for  eternity.  Notice  the  pecu- 
liar form  of  that  choice.  When  you  return  to  your  rooms  I 
want  you  to  read  that  over  and  over,  again  and  again,  and 
notice  this:  Ruth  did  not  say  to  Naomi,  "I  am  going  to  give 
up  my  country  and  my  kindred  and  my  husband's  grave 
and  my  whole  past  experience;  I  am  going  to  give  up  this 
and  that,  and  that,  and  that."  Ruth  never  thought  about 
what  she  was  giving  up;  what  she  did  think  about  was  the 
things  she  was  taking  up.  "Thy  people  shall  be  my  people, 
thy  God  shall  be  my  God."  You  can  find  nowhere  a  better 
idea  of  the  proper  attitude  of  the  young  convert  to  the 
religion  of  Christ  than  that  which  is  characteristic  of  this 
choice  of  Ruth.  She  was  not  thinking  of  what  she  was  giv- 
ing up;  she  was  thinking  of  the  supremer  gain  in  what  she 
was  taking  up.  There  are  a  great  many  foolish  people  in 
this  world  who  think  of  the  sacrifices.  Ruth  thought  of  the 


42  LECTURES  ON  THE 

glory  of  joining  in  with  the  people  of  Naomi,  the  God  of 
Naomi.  She  did  not  care  much  for  the  things  she  was  giv- 
ing up;  she  cared  infinitely  more  for  the  things  she  was 
taking  up.  You  are  not  really  ready  to  join  the  church  and 
do  right  until  you  can  see  in  a  Christian  life  an  added  gain 
over  the  life  outside — when  you  can  see  that  it  is  not  a  gain 
you  are  giving  up,  but  a  gain  you  are  taking  up.  It  is  a 
gain  to  do  right,  not  a  loss.  As  long  as  we  regard  it  as  a  loss, 
we  have  not  the  right  idea  of  religion.  You  must  give  up 
your  friends  and  your  horse  and  your  bicycle  and  your  every- 
thing. What  mustn't  you  give  up?  Add  them  up  in  your 
head — got  to  give  up  this  and  that.  It  seems  to  me  that  God 
must  get  weary  sometimes  looking  over  the  list  of  foolish 
things  that  people  conceive  they  have  to  give  up  before  they 
can  join  the  church.  What  can  you  gain?  Look  to  that. 
What  did  Euth  gain?  She  gained  a  new  people,  new  friends, 
a  new  God,  a  new  religion — a  tremendous  gain  in  her  life. 
There  are  compensations  in  the  religion  of  Christ.  If  you 
were  to  sit  down  and  think  as  long  and  as  hard  about  the 
things  that  you  can  gain  by  joining  the  church  as  you  do 
about  the  things  you  will  lose  by  joining  the  church,  you 
would  come  into  the  church  sooner,  come  into  it  better, 
and  be  more  contented  when  you  are  in  it.  That  was  what 
Ruth  did.  That  is  what  makes  her  speech  beautiful.  It 
would  have  infinitely  marred  Ruth's  choice  and  Ruth's  life 
if  she  had  said,  "I  am  going  to  leave  my  life  and  my  religion 
and  join  yours."  That  is  not  the  way  to  put  things. 

The  choice  was,  first  of  all,  an  affectionate  one.  It  was 
born  of  her  absolute  love  for  the  old  woman.  I  think  that  a 
great  many  folks  like  old  people.  I  think  old  people  are  liked 
for  two  reasons:  first,  because  they  are  expected  to  die  soon, 
and  folks  think  they  have  to  give  them  a  great  deal  of  affec- 
tion very  quickly,  or  they  won't  live  long  enough  to  get 
much.  It  is  a  sort  of  feeling  that  they  will  have  to  hurry  the 
process  on  as  fast  as  possible.  Then,  some  old  people  are 
loved  for  what  they  are  expected  to  leave,  and  for  nothing 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  43 

else.  The  number  of  old  people  who  are  sincerely  loved,  gen- 
uinely loved,  earnestly  loved,  as  Ruth  loved  Naomi,  is  not  as 
great  as  we  sometimes  suppose.  Ruth,  you  see,  had  no  out- 
look here.  Naomi  could  not  give  her  a  farm,  nor  family 
standing,  nor  prestige  of  any  sort.  All  she  could  give  Ruth 
was  poverty  and  an  old  woman's  benediction.  But  that  was 
enough  for  Ruth,  because  she  loved  Naomi.  So  I  say,  in  the 
first  place,  it  was  an  affectionate  choice. 

In  the  second  place,  it  was  an  entire  choice.  It  was  a  giv- 
ing up  of  absolutely  all  that  she  had.  It  was  obeying  the 
injunction  which  her  own  descendant  afterward  gave  to  the 
young  man:  "Sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor."  In 
the  third  place,  it  was  an  humble  choice.  She  chose  an  hum- 
ble place  in  life.  In  that  way,  I  think,  exemplifying  or  typi- 
fying the  character  of  Lazarus  later  on.  She  chose  the  poor 
things  first,  that  she  might  have  the  better  things  later  on. 
My  father  always  taught  me,  when  a  boy,  to  eat  the  poorest 
apples  first,  and  keep  the  best  ones  for  the  last.  That  was  his 
notion,  and  it  was  right.  Lazarus  had  his  better  things  in 
Abraham's  bosom;  the  rich  man  had  his  better  time  here. 
Ruth  was  like  Lazarus;  she  chose  for  the  future,  and  made  an 
humble  choice  for  the  present.  Then  it  was  a  determined  choice. 
There  was  no  wavering  about  it;  like  Paul's,  "This  one  thing 
I  do."  In  the  next  place,  it  was  an  instant  choice — that  is, 
when  the  moment  came  that  the  choice  had  to  be  made,  she 
made  it;  exemplifying  another  character  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment scriptures,  of  whom  it  was  written,  "They  arose  and  fol- 
lowed him."  Did  they  say,  "We  will  go  home,  and  come 
to-morrow  and  report  to  you"?  That  is  the  way  we  do 
things.  We  are  asked  to  do  right,  and  we  say,  "I  will  think 
about  it."  Somebody  asks  you  to  join  the  church,  and  you 
say,  "I  will  think  about  it."  When  Christ  went  along  by  the 
sea  and  saw  people  fishing,  and  said,  "Follow  me,"  did  they 
say,  "Wait  until  next  week;  wait  until  we  have  sold  our  fish 
and  fixed  our  families  comfortably,  and  then  we  will  come"? 
No,  "They  arose  and  followed  him."  Ruth  did  the  same- 
thing.  She  did  not  wait;  it  was  an  instant  choice. 


44  LECTURES  OK  THE 


LECTURE  IV. 

In  the  eighteenth  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  after  Ruth 
made  her  heroic  statement,  Naomi  "Saw  that  she  was  stead- 
fastly minded."  I  desire  to  bring  that  thought  of  the 
text  vividly  hefore  you  as  the  keynote  of  the  woman's  char- 
acter. She  was  steadfastly  minded.  And  when  Naomi  saw 
tnat,  it  ended  all  controversy.  There  was  nothing  more  to 
be  said,  no  further  importuning  to  go  back.  When  she 
heard  Ruth  make  the  statement  that  you  find  recorded  in 
the  seventeenth  verse,  there  could  be,  of  course,  no  debate 
beyond  that.  There  was  a  determination,  a  resolution,  a  fixed- 
ness there  that  admitted  of  no  debate  or  argument.  Just  as 
long  as  you  are  not  sure  of  your  ground,  not  positive  of  your 
position,  not  clear  in  the  controversy,  you  are  going  to  waver 
and  shift  and  hesitate,  doubt  and  be  defeated.  But  here 
was  a  woman  that  won  from  the  beginning,  because  she  never 
changed  her  position.  She  had  some  sand,  some  grit  about 
her;  something  of  the  quality  that  makes  valiant  people;  the 
steadfastness  which  too  many  people  lack  nowadays,  as  they 
did  even  in  the  days  of  Ruth. 

"We  come,  in  the  next  place,  to  a  study  of  the  journey 
homeward  to  Bethlehem.  "So  they  went  until  they  came  to 
Bethlehem."  How  do  you  suppose  Naomi  felt  coming  back 
home?  She  had  been  away  ten  years.  She  says  herself  she 
went  out  full,  she  came  back  empty.  An  old  woman  now; 
not  a  thing  in  the  world;  poor;  not  even  known  of  her  neigh- 
bors; so  changed,  they  look  at  her  in  surprise  and  say,  "Is  this 
Naomi?"  Can  you  imagine  something  of  the  feeling  that 
you  would  have,  if  you  were  to  go  out  from  your  home  in  lux- 
ury, in  comfort,  stay  away  for  ten  years  in  a  strange  land, 
and  come  back  poor,  bowed  down  with  losses,  alone  in  the 
world?  I  suppose  there  never  was  a  sadder  home-coming 
than  the  home-coming  of  old  Naomi.  The  one  thing  that 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  45 

made  it  tolerable  was  the  devotion  of  the  daughter-in-law, 
Ruth.  How  do  you  suppose  it  must  have  been  to  Ruth  her- 
self? Every  step  of  that  journey  to  Bethlehem  took  her  more 
and  more  and  more  into  uncertainty  and  into  doubt.  Ruth 
was  literally  walking  in  the  densest  doubt  that  a  human  soul 
could  enter.  She  had  given  up  everything;  she  could  look 
forward  to  nothing.  And  she  walked  right  into  that  maze  of 
uncertainty  with  the  one  simple  thought  that  she  was  going 
to  stick  by  Naomi,  no  matter  what  comes.  She  did  not  know 
what  was  to  be  met,  she  did  not  know  what  to  expect.  She 
had  no  revelation  of  anything  except  that  she  would  be  true 
to  her  vow.  What  do  you  suppose  they  talked  about  on 
their  journey  to  Bethlehem?  There  never  was  any  further 
reference  to  going  back.  It  was  now  a  companionship  for 
life.  That  was  settled.  The  past  is  over;  now  they  begin  to 
speak  of  the  future,  the  little  prospect  of  a  hut,  a  cabin,  a 
few  rooms,  a  chance  to  beg,  the  hope  that  somebody's  char- 
ity would  be  exercised,  an  earnest  desire  on  their  part  to  live, 
an  absolute  determination  to  stick  by  each  other,  evidently  a 
protestation  on  the  part  of  the  old  one  that  she  would  be  in 
the  way,  evidently  an  earnest  beseeching  on  the  part  of  the 
other  that  she  should  not  talk  so.  And  so,  the  one  with  en- 
couragement, the  other  with  discouragement,  they  wander 
along  hand  in  hand,  crying,  no  doubt,  half  the  journey; 
lying  down  at  night  under  the  stars,  as  Jacob  did,  and  wait- 
ing for  the  morning  light  to  push  onward.  For  this  journey 
was  by  no  means  a  short  one,  and  by  women  afoot  by  no 
means  an  easy  one  to  accomplish.  At  last  they  come  to  the 
city  of  Bethlehem,  and  find  the  city  alive  with  astonishment. 
Some  of  them  say  in  surprise,  "Is  this  Naomi?"  Some  of 
them  say  in  condemnation,  "Is  this  Naomi?"  as  if  they  would 
pronounce  upon  her  a  denunciation  for  having  abandoned 
her  people  ten  years  before,  and  run  away  from  the  dispensa- 
tion of  Providence.  Others  would  say  in  contempt,  "Is  this 
Naomi?"  And  still  others  would  say  in  compassion  and  pity, 
what  you  would  perhaps  have  said  had  you  been  there,  "Is 


46  LECTURES  ON  THE 

this  Naomi;  poor  thing,  is  this  what  she  has  come  to?"  How- 
ever different  the  point  you  choose  to  consider  the  exclama- 
tion from,  it  showed  supreme  surprise  upon  the  part  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Bethlehem.  They  could  not  realize  the  marvelous 
change!  Do  you  remember  how  Eip  Van  Winkle  came  home 
.after  twenty  years  asleep?  Nobody  knew  him;  he  was  in 
doubt  whether  he  knew  himself.  You  cannot  imagine  how 
your  own  soul  would  feel  if  it  were  to  go  out  for  ten  years  and 
come  back  changed  as  Naomi  was  changed.  You  don't  know 
how  lonely  you  would  feel;  you  don't  know  how  much  aston- 
ishment you  would  produce.  "Is  this  Naomi?"  Think  about 
that.  Eemember  what  she  said:  "Don't  call  me  Naomi." 
i/That  was  a  word  in  the  Hebrew  that  meant  "favor,"  "beauti- 
ful," "prosperous."  She  had  no  favor;  she  had  lost  her 
beauty;  she  had  lost  her  prosperity.  She  says,  "Call  me 
bitter,  call  me  Mara,  for  the  Lord  hath  dealt  heavily  with 
e." 

She  had  had  a  hard  life.  When  you  get  so  low  in  this  life 
in  the  depths  of  sadness  that  you  are  willing  to  forget  your 
name  and  give  up  everything  that  designates  your  past, 
when  you  do  not  want  even  to  be  reminded  of  it  in  the  sound 
•of  the  voice,  you  are  to  be  most  supremely  pitied.  "Do  not 
call  me  by  my  old  name  any  more!  Let  not  even  the  sound  of 
the  voice  suggest  the  past,  that  now  no  longer  is.  Call  me 
bitter,  for  such  I  am.  It  has  gone  badly  with  my  life."  How 
many  of  us  ten  years  from  now — think  about  this;  you  don't 
realize  it  now — will  sit  down  somewhere  and  say,  "Call  me 
bitter;  I  have  had  ten  years  that  did  not  go  well?"  Some  of 
you  will  do  that  just  as  sure  as  you  are  sitting  here.  I  do 
not  like  to  say  it,  but  I  know  it  is  so.  Some  of  you,  ten  years 
from  this  moment,  will  be  sorry  that  you  lived  the  ten 
years,  as  old  Naomi  was  sorry  that  she  had  lived.  In  the 
battle  it  is  going  to  go  against  you,  and  you  will  want  to  for- 
get that  you  ever  lived.  I  don't  know  whether  there  is  one 
here  that  might  surrender  so  far  his  higher  judgment,  and 
higher  sense  of  what  is  right,  as  to  be  willing  to  forfeit  life 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  47 

rather  than  to  live  on  in  the  bitterness  that  may  come;  but 
it  may  be  so. 

A  friend  of  mine  this  afternoon,  up  in  my  room,  one  of 
my  boys,  said  he  did  not  know,  until  he  traveled  this  past 
year,  how  many  people  live  as  they  do.  I  said  to  him  what  I 
say  to  you  now — you  don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  well-born 
and  have  a  good  home.  You  are  infinitely  blessed  above 
eighty  per  cent  of  the  human  race  in  the  very  fact  that  you 
have  a  good  father  and  a  good  mother  and  a  good  home. 
When  these  are  gone,  it  is  a  tremendous  loss  to  any  soul. 
Poor  Naomi!  That  is  what  you  would  call  her.  But  you 
would  not  speak  of  it  to  represent  the  loss  of  her  property. 
Not  poor  Naomi  in  that  sense,  but  poor  Naomi  because  of 
your  heart's  being  touched  with  sympathy  for  the  abject  mis- 
ery that  has  come  upon  her  life,  the  dark  clouds  that  have 
settled  down  tight  over  it,  without  a  star  or  a  sun  to  brighten 
it,  and  the  only  warmth  stealing  out  to  her  lonely  heart 
the  devotion  of  her  daughter-in-law;  only  that,  no  more. 
When  you  get  so  far  in  this  world  from  where  you  now  are 
that  you  will  have  but  one  friend,  you  will  be  an  object  of 
pity  and  commiseration,  whoever  you  are.  Well,  it  was  home 
again  to  Naomi,  bitter  as  it  was.  It  was  coming  home  to 
start  the  world  anew,  to  begin  it  all  over  again.  The  only 
thing  left  for  her  was  to  start,  right  in  the  dust,  to  build 
again  a  new  life  and  a  new  prospect  in  the  world.  They 
went  in  by  night.  I  don't  think-  she  would  have  had  it  in 
her  heart  to  enter  the  town  in  daylight.  If  the  lonely  woman 
-ever  had  a  wish  in  that  long  first  night,  as  she  sat  alone  in 
Bethlehem  and  thought  of  the  days  that  were,  thought  of 
the  grave  of  her  husband  in  Moab,  thought  of  the  graves  of 
her  two  children  in  Moab,  thought  of  her  abandoned  daugh- 
ter-in-law, thought  of  the  one  that  sat  by  her  side,  it  was,  "I 
wish  I  could  live  it  over  again!  If  I  only  were  back  at  the 
beginning!  If  I  could  only  do  it  over,  and  do  it  differ- 
ently!" 

It  is  so  easy  to  see  our  mistakes  after  we  have  made  them. 


48  LECTUKES  ON  THE 

It  takes  the  wisdom  of  God  to  anticipate  them  and  avoid 
them.     It  brings  to  my  mind  an  old  story  I  used  to  read 
when  I  was  a  boy,  of  a  man  who  wrote  like  this:  "It  was 
New  Year's  night.    An  aged  man  was  standing  at  the  win- 
dow looking  out  into  the  darkness.     The  snow  was  falling;: 
the  wind  was  blowing.     He  saw  before  him  his  own  life 
stretching  like  a  great  path  down  through  the  ages,  through 
the  years.    And  he  saw,  as  he  walked  down  the  path,  where 
the  road  parted.  He  had  chosen  the  one  road,  and  had  refused 
to  take  the  other.    He  had  gone  down  that  road  year  after 
year.    It  was  the  wrong  road.    It  had  taken  him  to  the  bar- 
room and  the  gambling-den.     It  had  taken  him  to  poverty 
and  to  disgrace,  to  all  manner  of  crime.   And  in  his  old  age 
it  had  brought  him  to  the  border  of  the  grave.    As  he  stood 
looking  out  into  the  night,  he  said:  "Oh,  Youth,  return!    Oh, 
give  me  back  my  early  days!    Put  me  once  more  at  the  forks 
of  the  road,  that  I  may  choose  the  other  instead  of  the  one 
that  I  have  trod/  "  That  would  be  the  wish  of  any  heart. 
Some  of  you  are  now  saying  to  yourselves,  young  as  you  are,, 
that  if  you  had  it  to  live  over,  you  would  live  life  better.  But 
it  is  very  doubtful  whether  you  would.     Is  there  any  use  of 
grieving  about  what  you  have  done?    The  thing  to  do  is  to 
get  right  now — to  start  like  Naomi  and  Euth  to  build  up  on 
the  present  conditions.    Forget  the  past.    Make  the  most  of 
the  future.    No  use  to  sit  and  grieve  about  what  has  gone. 
The  thing  to  do  is  to  change  and  begin  anew.     "So  they 
came  home  in  barley  time/'    That  was  lucky,  to  come  home 
when  there  was  something  to  eat.    It  was  peculiarly  a  lucky 
thing  in  that  country,  because  in  barley  time  the  poor  had 
exceptional   opportunities.     Do   you  know   anything   about 
the  laws  of  the  Jews  concerning  gleaning?     I  will  read  to- 
you  a  little  from  the  Bible.    It  is  a  book  that  you  don't  read 
more  than  you  might.     It  would  pay  you  to  read  it  more 
frequently,  especially  the  five  books  of  Moses.    They  are  the 
basis  of  the  whole  development  of  the  Word  of  Truth. 
"And  when  you  reap  the  harvest  of  your  land,  thou  shalt 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  49 

not  wholly  reap  the  corners  of  thy  field,  neither  shalt  thou 
gather  the  gleanings  of  thy  harvest.  And  thou  shalt  not 
glean  thy  vineyard,  neither  shalt  thou  gather  every  grape 
of  thy  vineyard;  thou  shalt  leave  them  for  the  poor  and 
stranger.  I  am  the  Lord  your  God." — Lev.  xix.  9-10.  You 
are  not  to  pick  up  what  you  drop — that  is  gleanings.  You 
understand  what  gleanings  are — bits  of  grain  that  fall  from 
the  hand  of  the  sickler,  and  that  are  prohibited  from  being 
gathered.  They  are  for  the  people  that  come  after.  What 
grapes  fall  to  the  ground,  or  what  you  miss  in  the  first  pick- 
ing, you  shall  not  reach  for  again.  There  is  an  express  pro- 
vision made  in  the  Book  for  the  poor.  "When  thou  cuttest 
down  thine  harvest  in  thy  field,  and  hast  forgot  a  sheaf  in  the 
field,  thou  shalt  not  go  again  to  fetch  it:  it  shall  be  for  the 
stranger,  for  the  fatherless  and  for  the  widow:  that  the 
Lord  thy  God  may  bless  thee  in  all  the  work  of  thine  hands. 
When  thou  beatest  thine  olive  tree,  thou  shalt  not  go  over  the 
boughs  again:  it  shall  be  for  the  stranger,  for  the  fatherless 
and  for  the  widow.  When  thou  gatherest  the  grapes  of  thy 
vineyard,  thou  shalt  not  glean  it  afterward:  it  shall  be  for  the 
stranger,  for  the  fatherless  and  for  the  widow.  And  thou 
shalt  remember  that  thou  wast  a  bondman  in  the  land  of 
Egypt:  therefore  I  command  thee  to  do  this  thing." — Deut. 
xxiv.  19-22.  Why  should  these  things  be  left?  "For  thou  shalt 
remember,"  etc.  This  is  the  Mosaic  law  on  poverty  and 
gleanings  in  the  field.  Evidently  God's  design  in  making 
such  a  provision  is  that  those  that  are  poor  shall  mingle 
with  the  others  in  society,  and  that  they  should  have  a  chance> 
to  gather  by  their  own  effort  sufficient  to  nourish  their 
bodies.  That  is  God's  way  of  dealing  with  them.  I  often 
wonder  what  God  would  say  if  he  were  to  carve  out  a  new 
revelation  and  a  new  statement  of  his  feeling  concerning  our 
modern  method  of  dealing  with  poverty.  We  tie  the  hands 
of  the  poor.  We  incarcerate  them  in  almshouses,  pen  them 
away  from  society,  and  make  them  dependent.  God  in 
his  law  made  the  poor  independent.  He  appointed  a 


50  LECTURES  ON  THE 

way  by  which  they  could  honestly  earn  food  for  their 
bodies.  We  gather  our  own  gleanings,  and  pay  it  in 
taxes  lo  shut  our  paupers  from  the  sight  of  the  people.  The 
tax  money  which  we  gather  from  our  gleanings  barely  gives 
to  the  poor  half  the  sustenance  that  they  would  win  for 
themselves,  were  we  to  leave  in  our  fields  the  gleanings  which 
we  are  obliged  now  to  gather  to  pay  our  taxes.  Naturally, 
therefore,  this  conclusion  would  come — turn  the  poor  out, 
stop  paying  taxes,  and  leave  the  gleanings  as  God  intended 
from  the  beginning.  We  could  not  do  it  now,  because  there 
would  be  a  lot  of  salaried  officers  that  would  lose  a  job!  But 
God  never  provided  for  that  class  at  all;  he  did  provide  for 
the  poor.  We  provide  for  salaried  men,  and  whatever  is  left 
we  give  to  the  poor,  and  our  sympathy  with  it.  But  sym- 
thy  does  not  clothe  and  feed  the  hungry.  It  seems  to  me 
tat  we  need  to  think  along  these  lines. 
Note  two  or  three  things  that  grow  out  of  the  home-com- 
ing of  Naomi.  An  intense  love  for  home  and  an  intense 
anchorage  to  the  home  scenes  is  an  important  thing  in  life. 
She  came  home.  Of  course  the  changed  condition  was  tre- 
mendous. It  is  said  of  the  Swiss  soldiery  that  when  they  go 
off  to  fight  in  Spain  or  Italy  they  cannot  bear  to  hear  the 
"Banz  des  Vaehes,"  the  song  that  calls  the  cows  down  into 
the  valley,  because  that  song  makes  them  heartsick  for  home, 
and  in  the  night,  after  that  song  is  sung  in  the  camp,  they 
will  either  desert  or  die.  Oh,  the  power  of  song!  How 
many  of  you  have  ever  read  of  the  tremendous  influence  that 
Jennie  Lind  exercised  over  that  immense  audience  in  Castle 
Garden,  in  New  York?  She  sang  so  delightfully  that  they 
encored  her,  and  then  she  sang  "Home,  Sweet  Home."  What 
was  it  that  came  to  their  hearts?  The  appeal  for  the  home 
place,  the  love  of  home  in  the  hearts  of  those  people.  And 
when  she  afterward  repeated  that  splendid  performance  down 
in  Washington,  Daniel  Webster,  sitting  in  the  audience,  rose 
to  his  feet,  overcome  by  the  power  of  the  song,  and  sang 
with  her.  She  sang  to  him,  and  he  sang  to  her.  For  more 


BOOK  OF  RUTH,  51 

than  twenty  minutes  each  endeavored  to  outsing  the  other. 
Marvelous  revelation  of  the  power  that  song  has  to  bring 
up  to  the  mind  the  devotion  to  home!  Some  of  you  are 
away  from  home  now,  and  you  are  looking  forward  to  the 
time  when  you  will  be  able  to  go  home;  and  how  glad  the 
home  folks  will  be  to  see  you!  The  home  feeling  is  power- 
fully strong  in  us.  Any  one  is  to  be  pitied  that  has  to  go 
home  and  find  everything  so  changed  that  there  is  no  joy  or 
comfort  in  the  home-coming.  On  the  other  hand,  one  can 
afford  to  think  of  going  home  if  he  knows  that  the  song  of 
welcome  will  ring  out.  This  makes  me  think  of  the  songs 
that  shall  ring  out  from  the  throne  of  heaven  when  the  ran- 
somed souls  of  men  and  women  shall  have  their  eternal  home- 
coming. We  are  all  out  now  in  the  land  of  Moab,  wandering 
around,  strangers,  foreigners.  We  often  sing,  "I  am  but  a 
stranger  here;  heaven  is  my  home."  We  had  better  make 
such  use  of  this  strange  country,  and  live  so  in  it  that  when 
we  come  home  it  will  be  with  songs  and  rejoicing  both  in  the 
heavenly  home  and  in  our  hearts. 

Turn  to  the  second  chapter.  When  they  came  back,  what 
were  the  circumstances  under  which  they  found  Boaz?  "And 
Xaomi.  had  a  kinsman  of  her  husband,  a  mighty  man  of 
wealth,  of  the  family  of  Elimelech;  and  his  name  was  Boaz." 
In  this  second  chapter  we  have  the  claim  of  the  weak  upon 
the  strong — the  relation,  in  other  words,  between  the  rich 
and  the  poor.  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  the  fact  that  Boaz 
was  a  good  man,  although  he  was  rich.  If  you  have  listened 
to  the  talk  in  this  country  during  the  past  six  months,  if  you 
have  heard  the  specious  arguments  of  demagogues,  you  nat- 
urally inhibit  the  idea  that  every  man  that  has  a  dollar  in  his 
pocket  is  a  rascal,  and  every  man  that  has  no  money  in  his 
pocket  is  a  gentleman.  We  have  talked  ourselves  into  the 
notion  that  wealth  goes  with  wrong,  and  poverty  with  right. 
A  more  false  and  more  dastardly  notion  than  that  could  not 
be  incorporated  into  the  thought  of  a  people.  The  richest 
man  in  the  state  may  be  the  best  man,  and  the  poorest  man 


62  LECTURES  ON  THE 

may  be  the  worst  man.  To  denounce  one  class  because  of 
their  wealth,  and  to  laud  another  class  because  of  their  pov- 
erty is  wrong.  Eightness  and  wrongness  are  not  based  upon 
the  amount  of  money  one  possesses.  It  is  based  upon  one's 
life  and  the  use  one  makes  of  the  means  at  his  command. 
Here  was  Boaz,  a  mighty  man;  and  he  was  a  good  man.  He 
was  just  as  good  as  the  best  in  Bethlehem,  and,  I  have  no 
doubt,  a  great  deal  better  than  some  people  who,  since  the 
days  of  Elimelech  and  Boaz,  have  gone  around  traducing 
and  maligning  men  because  they  have  property.  Boaz  prob- 
ably inherited  his  property,  as,  under  the  laws  of  the  Jews, 
he  had  a  right  to  do.  And  he  probably  increased  his  prop- 
erty; because  he  was  an  earnest  man,  an  honest  man,  a  hard- 
working man.  He  went  out  to  the  harvest  field.  He  did  not 
ride  around  in  a  carriage.  He  did  not  go  to  the  fashionable 
resorts,  nor  lie  down  in  idleness.  He  went  out  into  the  har- 
vest field  and  asked  that  the  spirit  of  God  might  come  upon 
his  workers.  He  was  not  ashamed  to  work.  Perhaps  he 
was  the  greatest  man  in  Bethlehem.  But  his  money  had  not 
interfered  with  his  goodness.  We  want,  somehow,  to  build 
up  in  this  country  a  different  notion.  We  do  not  want  to 
malign  the  men  with  money  and  praise  the  men  with  pov- 
erty. We  want  to  speak  kindly  of  the  man  who  does  kindly 
things,  and  we  want  to  denounce  the  man  that  speaks 
unkindly  of  anybody  without  cause. 

In  this  country  to-day,  this  whole  wrangling,  warring 
strife  that  goes  on  between  riches  and  poverty  is  built  upon 
the  suggestion  that  everybody  that  has  money  is  bad  and 
everybody  that  has  none  is  good.  The  fact  is  there  is  good- 
ness and  badness  in  every  class.  Some  of  the  men  that  have 
not  a  cent  in  the  world  are  in  jail,  and  others  of  them,  no 
doubt,  ought  to  be.  Some  of  the  men  that  can  show  a  dollar 
ought  to  be  in  jail;  some  of  them  ought  never  to  go  there. 
Some  of  them  are  good  and  some  of  them  are  bad.  You  will 
find  worthy  men  in  every  walk  of  life,  and  you  will  find 
unworthy  men.  True  enough,  the  Bible  says  that  increasing 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  53 

temptation  comes  with  increasing  riches,  and  that  it  is  hard 
for  a  rich  man  to  get  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  he 
can  get  there.  That  is  what  I  want  you  to  understand.  Take 
an  institution  like  this  college;  it  is  absolutely  dependent 
upon  the  charity  of  Christian  men  and  women  of  means — 
that  is,  its  life  in  the  future  depends  upon  their  giving  a 
sustaining  and  a  helping  hand.  It  is  my  good  fortune  every 
now  and  then  to  sit  and  talk  with  a  man  who  can  write  his 
check  for  millions  of  dollars.  And  he  is  just  as  modest,  just 
as  good,  just  as  gentlemanly,  just  as  righteous  in  the  light 
of  things  as  he  understands  them  as  any  man  I  know.  His 
money  has  not  injured  him  in  the  least;  it  has  only  increased 
his  power  to  do  good.  And  his  money  has  done  good  in  a 
dozen  ways  that  I  know  of,  and  in  dozens  of  ways  that  no 
man  knows  of — that  God  alone  has  any  record  of. 

Let  us  learn  that  a  man  like  Boaz,  who  knows  what  it  ia 
to  earn  money  and  use  it  in  righteous  purposes,  is  the  kind 
of  a  man  that  we  can  afford  to  emulate.  I  shall  not  cut 
from  my  acquaintance  any  young  man  who  begins  to  earn 
money,  if  he  knows  how  to  use  it  for  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity and  for  the  purposes  of  God.  If  he  hoard  it,  then 
his  money  is  his  curse,  and  he  is  a  curse  to  his  money.  But 
if  he  use  it  in  the  endowment  of  charitable  and  educational 
institutions,  in  the  alleviation  of  misery  and  in  a  life  of  sac- 
rifice and  devotion,  God  can  consecrate  his  money  and  make 
it  a  multiplied  power  for  good  in  the  world.  He  was  a 
mighty  man,  Boaz.  And  here  beside  him  in  the  night  was 
a  young  beggar.  Will  he  use  his  money  for  God's  poor?  In 
the  morning  she  turned  to  her  mother-in-law  and  said,  "Shall 
I  go  out  and  glean?"  That  was  a  hard  question  to  ask. 
Suppose  you  were  to  go  out  of  here  this  evening,  and  you 
had  not  a  cent  in  the  world,  no  food,  no  place  to  sleep 
to-night,  and  you  would  come  to  me  at  the  door  and  say, 
"Shall  I  go  out  now  and  beg?"  It  would  be  pretty  hard  for 
you  to  say,  and  harder  still  to  do,  would  it  not?  Ruth  comes 
in  the  morning  twilight  and  says  to  old  Naomi,  "Shall  I  go 


54  LECTURES  ON  THE 

and  glean?"  What  did  it  mean  to  Ruth?  It  meant  to  take 
advantage  of  the  pauper  laws  of  the  old  Jewish  dispensation 
— to  go  out  and  take  that  which  God  had  set  aside  for  the 
orphans,  the  fatherless  and  the  widow  and  the  stranger.  To 
go  out  and  glean  meant  to  openly  confess  the  fact  that  she 
was  a  beggar.  That  was  the  introduction  of  Ruth  among 
the  people  of  Naomi,  into  the  religion  of  Naomi.  She 
begged  the  first  day  that  she  was  in  Bethlehem.  What  did 
the  old  woman  say  when  the  question  was  asked,  "Shall  I 
go  and  beg?"  It  must  have  wrung  her  old  heart  with  the 
deepest  agony  that  she  had  yet  felt,  when  she  had  to  bow 
her  head  and  think  of  her  own  hunger  and  the  hunger  of  her 
daughter-in-law.  It  must  have  been  a  tremendous  trial  for 
her  to  say,  "Go,  my  daughter."  How  beautifully  the  spirit 
of  Ruth  shows  out  in  that  question.  She  would  not  even 
beg,  and  put  the  stigma  of  begging  upon  Naomi  without 
Naomi's  consent. 

"Go,  my  daughter,"  was  necessary;  and  out  goes  this  young 
woman  a  self-appointed  and  branded  beggar,  to  glean  in 
the  fields  of  him  in  whose  sight  she  might  find  favor — that 
is,  where  she  might  get  a  chance  to  glean.  "And  she  went 
and  came,  and  gleaned  in  the  field  after  the  reapers;  and  her 
hap  was  to  light  on  a  part  of  the  field  belonging  unto  Boaz." 
"And  her  hap  was."  They  did  not  have  fences.  There 
were  dozens  of  sicklers  and  dozens  of  gleaners.  "And  her 
hap  was"  to  go  into  the  part  of  the  plain  where  the  men 
and  damsels  of  Boaz  were  working.  It  says,  "Her  hap  was." 
Do  you  think  it  was  an  accident?  Do  you  think  it  was  a 
mere  blundering  chance?  It  is  the  same  word  Jesus  Christ 
uses  in  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  It  happened 
that  a  man  went  down  that  way.  But  what  we  call  chance 
and  luck  is  just  a  part  of  God's  universal  plan.  What  we 
woul^  call  "her  hap"  was  God's  will.  She  went  into  that 
fielk  Because  God  intended  that  her  sweet,  pure  spirit  should 
go  to  the  place  where  it  might  be  glorified.  She  went  there, 
and  she  met  Boaz,  and  gained  the  exaltation  of  her  life.  It 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  55 

was  the  hardest  thing  in  her  life  to  go  into  the  field  without 
knowing  a  soul,  to  begin  to  glean  and  beg.  Do  you  suppose 
ishe  cried?  In  answer  to  that  question  I  think  of  the  poem 
of  Keats,  "To  the  Nightingale": 

"Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  bird, 
No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down. 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 
In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown. 
Perhaps  the  selfsame  song  that  found  a  path 
Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth  when  sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  'alien  corn.' '' 

I  think  that  was  a  climax  in  her  life.  She  could  not  have 
gotten  lower  in  any  way  in  this  world.  And  out  of  that  God 
exalted  her  step  by  step.  We  shall  leave  her  there.  Let  us 
-study  Ruth  in  the  harvest  field  of  Boaz. 

"The  fragrant  sheaves  of  the  wheat 

Made  the  air  above  them  sweet; 

Sweeter  and  more  divine 

Was  the  scent  of  the  scattered  grain, 

That  the  reaper's  hand  let  fall 

To  be  gathered  again 

By  the  hand  of  the  gleaner; 

Sweetest,  divinest  of  all 

Was  the  humble  deed  of  thine, 

And  the  meekness  of  thy  demeanor. 

She  stood  breast-high  amid  the  corn, 

Clasped  by  the  golden  light  of  morn, 

Like  the  sweetheart  of  the  sun, 

Who  many  a  glowing  kiss  had  won. 

On  her  cheeks  an  autumn  flush 

Deeply  ripened — such  a  blush 

In  the  midst  of  brown  was  born, 

Like  red  poppies  grown  with  corn. 


56  LECTURES  ON  THE. 

Thus  she  stood  amid  the  stocks, 
Praising  God  with  sweetest  looks. 
'Sure/  I  said,  'Heaven  did  not  mean 
Where  I  reap  thou  should'st  but  glean; 
Lay  thy  sheaf  adown  and  come, 
Share  my  harvest  and  my  home/  " 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  57 


LECTURE  V. 

•'Her  hap  was"  to  light  upon  the  fields  that  were  owned 
by  Boaz.  To  glean  would  be  attended  with  a  great  deal  of 
uncertainty  as  to  whose  field  she  would  get  into.  Here  in 
one  piece  of  ground,  unfenced,  were  thirty  or  forty  sets  of 
gleaners  and  thirty  or  forty  sets  of  reapers.  It  happened  that 
she  fell  in  with  those  that  were  working  in  the  fields  of  Boaz. 
The  chance  was  about  thirty  to  one  against  her  doing  it. 
God  sent  her  into  the  field  of  Boaz.  Although  the  Book 
says  "It  was  her  hap,"  it  was  God's  will.  The  things  we 
call  happenings  in  this  world  are  the  things  in  which  God 
shows  His  wisdom  and  moulds  our  lives.  Upon  what  little 
things  the  destiny  of  a  human  life  depends!  You  came  here 
to  school.  What  sent  you  to  school?  Perhaps  some  turn  or 
accident  somewhere  in  the  home  organization.  You  have 
received  in  the  school  an  entirely  new  outlook  upon  life.  It 
may  be  that  you  form  acquaintances  here  that  result  in  the 
forming  of  an  entirely  different  career.  Sometimes  the 
dropping  of  a  word  by  a  minister,  or  a  teacher,  or  a  friend, 
changes  the  whole  life  of  the  person  to  whom  the  word  is 
spoken.  There  are  in  this  room  now,  sitting  here,  people 
who  can  testify  that  they  absolutely  have  changed  their  lives 
because  some  time  in  their  career  somebody  said  something 
that  influenced  them.  The  mere  accident  of  Ruth's  going 
into  the  field  of  Boaz,  instead  of  any  other  field  of  the  many 
around,  determined  the  whole  force  and  circumstance  of  her 
future  life.  I  take  the  position  that  God  could  not  let  cir- 
cumstances as  tremendous  as  those  that  hung  upon  this  to  be 
brought  about  by  mere  chance.  He  intended  it.  She  went  into 
that  field  under  divine  guidance  and  divine  knowledge.  If 
your  life  has  been  changed  by  a  mere  accident,  as  you  call  it, 
I  would  like  to  impress  upon  you  that  God  was  behind  the 
accident. 


58  LECTURES  ON  THE 

In  other  words,  it  is  probably  wise  to  say  that  there  is  no 
chance;  that  the  word  luck  should  not  be  in  the  language; 
that  things  do  not  happen;  that  when  we  make  these  con- 
fessions they  are  but  indications  of  our  weakness  and  inabil- 
ity to  see  that  what  we  have  and  where  we  are  is  but  what 
God  has  intended,  and  which  in  his  wisdom  he  has  not  seen  fit 
to  reveal  to  us.  So  we  will  read  here  for  "her  hap/'  God's 
design  was  that  she  should  go  into  the  field  where  Boaz  was. 
"The  steps  of  a  good  man  are  ordered  by  the  Lord:  and  he 
delighteth  in  his  way." — Psl.  xxxvii.  23,  That  looks  as  if 
it  were  true  that  Euth  went  out  there  with  her  steps  ordered 
of  the  Lord. 

You  have  a  picture  in  the  fourth  verse,  continuing  through 
the  fifth  to  the  seventh  verse — a  most  delightful  picture  of 
country  life  out  in  the  harvest  field.  What  is  more  charming 
than  a  harvest  scene?  What  more  beautiful  than  to  see  the 
bending  grain  ripe  for  the  harvest;  the  busy  gleaners  fol- 
lowing after;  the  master  coming  down  to  his  field  to  see  how 
the  work  is  coming  on?  You  have  here  in  this  little  pastoral 
Book  of  Kuth  one  of  the  most  charming  views  of  rustic 
home  life  you  will  find  anywhere  in  the  Sacred  Word  or  in 
profane  literature.  It  brings  to  my  mind  hundreds  of  scenes 
that  I  saw  in  southern  Europe — young  men  and  women  har- 
vesting in  the  fields,  the  harvest  bowing  before  the  sicklers. 
You  don't  see  those  things  here  nowadays,  with  our  modern 
patent  machinery  by  which  we  gather  things  up  and  rush 
them  into  market.  But  in  those  Old  World  scenes  we  have 
pictures  of  rural  content  that  we  have  lost  in  our  modern 
society.  What  was  the  relation  existing  between  Boaz  and 
his  workers?  You  will  find  that  the  relation  was  most  cor- 
dial. He  was  on  speaking  terms  with  the  men  who  worked 
for  him.  He  loved  them,  and  they  loved  him.  They  worked 
for  him  not  alone  for  the  money,  but  they  worked  for  him 
because  of  the  devotion  they  felt  toward  the  master.  They 
were  not  merely  wage-earners,  time-servers,  but  they  were 
devoted  attaches  of  the  great  man  in  his  toil;  they  loved 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  59 

him.  I  wonder  how  many  people  to-day  work  in  that  spirit. 
Go  down  to  the  factories  and  shops,  the  foundries,  forges  and 
rolling-mills,  the  multiplied  industrial  establishments  of  this 
country.  Take  my  word  for  it  that  three-fourths  of  the  men 
that  come  in  there  as  overseers  are  hated  by  three-fourths 
of  the  men  that  work  under  them.  There  has  grown  up 
between  the  master  and  the  workingman  a  feeling  of  antag- 
onism, which  leads  the  master  to  feel  that  the  workman  is 
doing  the  least  that  he  can  do  to  earn  his  money,  and  a  feel- 
ing on  the  part  of  the  workman  that  the  master  is  making 
him  do  the  most  that  he  can  exact  of  him  for  the  money. 
The  one  wants  to  do  the  least,  and  the  other  wants  him  to 
do  the  most.  There  is  a  feeling  of  hatred  engendered,  and 
men  strike,  and  there  results  this  persistent  war  and  friction 
between  capital  and  labor.  This  is  really  lying  to-day  at 
the  foundation  of  all  our  political  disturbances.  The  money 
question,  the  economic  question,  everything  that  has  agi- 
tated the  people  in  the  last  presidential  campaign,  bases 
itself  upon  the  fact  that  a  spirit  of  distrust  and  hatred  has 
grown  up  in  this  country  between  the  different  classes  in  it. 
Nothing  in  this  wide  world  in  the  way  of  legislation  will 
effectually  and  permanently  improve  that.  Mark  what  I 
say:  you  must  get  back  of  all  law,  for  you  can't  drive  me  to 
respect  you  any  more  than  I  can  compel  you  to  respect  me. 
There  Trust  be  a  regeneration  of  the  hearts  of  the  capitalists 
and  the  laborers  in  this  country.  And  I  confess  to  you  that 
I  don't  know  of  anything  in  all  the  world  that  would  relieve 
the  industrial  outlook  of  this  country  as  rapidly  as  the 
change  of  heart  that  would  come  from  the  genuine  conver- 
sion of  every  man  that  works  and  every  man  who  oversees 
work.  The  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  would  break  down  that 
antagonism.  Do  you  know  of  anything  else  that  would? 
Laws  won't  do  it.  You  cannot  persuade  men  to  drop  their 
petty  jealousies  and  effect  a  reconciliation.  These  conditions 
are  deep-seated.  They  are  in  the  souls  of  men.  You  don't 
know  until  you  go  out  into  the  working  districts  and  come 


60  LECTURES  ON  THE 

in  contact  with,  laborers  who  are  discontented,  and  converse 
with  manufacturers  who  are  likewise  discontented,  what  a 
tremendous  gap  there  is  between  man  and  man.  And  yet 
these  very  men  will  pretend  to  sit  in  church,  the  workman 
and  the  employer,  and  worship  the  same  God.  That  can't 
be,  and  foster  anything  like  a  religious  life.  In  other  words, 
what  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  is  this:  the  friction  that 
has  grown  up  in  our  industrial  life  has  made  impossible  any- 
thing like  the  rapid  growth  of  Christianity.  That  is,  you 
can  lay  at  the  hands  of  the  industrial  classes  this  solemn 
indictment,  that  the  feeling  of  strife  between  them  has 
made  impossible  anything  like  the  quick  evangelization  of 
the  world.  When  you  go  out  and  talk  about  war  between 
labor  and  capital,  and  stir  up  strife,  and  array  the  classes 
against  each  other,  you  are  really  arraying  influences  against 
each  other  that  make  impossible  the  spread  of  Christ's  gos- 
pel. There  are  many  people  that  don't  think  about  that  in 
politics.  They  simply  shout  and  yell  because  they  think 
they  will  get  into  office  in  that  way.  And  the  votes  they 
gather  around  them  represent  votes  and  influences  that  stand 
over  against  one  another.  This  feeling  of  separation  makes 
impossible  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  How  can 
God's  spirit  work  in  a  community  that  stands  over  against 
itself  and  hates  each  other?  Why,  if  Jesus  Christ  were  to 
convert  one  political  party,  the  other  would  turn  persecutor 
of  religion! 

We  have  allowed  our  political  prejudices  and  party  strife 
to  erect  such  barriers  between  us  that  even  Christ's  gospel  is 
crucified  and  limited  in  its  power.  It  was  not  so  in  the 
fields  of  Boaz.  He  came  down  there;  and  what  did  he  say? 
Did  he  swear  at  them?  Did  he  look  at  them  in  scorn  and 
contempt?  Did  he  say,  "Get  to  work  faster,  now,  or  I  will 
cut  off  your  wages"?  What  did  he  say?  "The  Lord  be  with 
you."  And  they  answered  him,  "The  Lord  bless  thee."  Here 
is  the  point  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  in  a  plain  and  brief 
manner,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  all  of  you  who  are  preachers 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  61 

need  to  preach  on  this:  there  is  a  certain  respect  and  a  cer- 
tain decency  that  every  man  owes  to  those  that  work  for 
him.  And  the  men  that  employ  ought  to  take  the  initiative 
in  showing  that  respect.  We  don't  have  the  old  master-and- 
servant  feeling  in  modern  society,  as  Paul  speaks  of  it,  as 
the  feeling  in  olden  times  portrayed  as  existing  hetween 
Philemon  and  Onesimus,  master  and  slave,  owner  and  owned. 
We  have  voluntary  service  from  those  that  work  for  us.  The 
fact  that  it  is  voluntary  only  imposes  upon  those  that  employ 
more  deeply  the  obligation  to  treat  the  employed  with  respect 
and  consideration.  I  know  a  lady  down  in  Philadelphia  who 
has  had  thirteen  servants  in  six  days.  One  day  she  had  four; 
one  time  she  kept  one  for  two  days.  She  can't  keep  them; 
they  come  and  go  in  a  regular  procession.  I  don't  know 
what  the  matter  is,  hut  there  is  something  wrong.  If  we 
were  to  get  three  students  one  day  and  lose  three  the  next, 
and  get  two  more  the  next  day  and  lose  them  in  a  day  or 
two,  and  so  on,  it  would  soon  get  into  the  heads  of  the  people- 
that  something  was  wrong  in  our  school. 

I  took  my  hoy  into  the  Sunday-school  last  fall  down  in 
the  city.  He  was  only  in  the  class  three  minutes,  when  he 
came  out,  and  stamped  his  foot,  and  said  he  was  not  going 
to  stay  there.  I  said,  "What  is  the  matter?"  He  said,  "A 
little  boy  spit  in  my  face."  He  was  outraged;  he  would  not 
go  back.  The  conditions  in  that  Sunday-school  were  such 
that  we  could  not  have  harmony  until  we  had  removed  the 
spitter.  You  will  find  that  among  employers  and  servants 
there  is  that  feeling  of  friction  and  distrust.  In  society 
to-day  every  man  is  striving  for  the  mastery.  Whether  a 
man  works  or  employs  others  to  work,  the  first  thing  he 
looks  out  for  is  himself.  It  is  a  selfish  motive  that  drives 
him  to  plan  for  his  own  aggrandizement.  "How  much  can 
I  make  out  of  this?"  He  makes  just  as  much  as  he  can 
make,  and  drives  those  that  work  for  him  just  as  far  down  as 
they  will  go  without  rebellion.  We  want  the  spirit  of  Christ 
in  the  hearts  of  the  men  that  employ  and  the  men  who  are- 


62  LECTURES  ON  THE 

employed.  We  want  each  to  be  concerned  for  the  welfare  of 
the  other;  that  each  should  surrender  selfishness  to  an  equi- 
table adjustment  of  mutual  rights;  and  that  the  man  who 
puts  his  money  into  business  should  put  it  there  for  the 
good  that  he  can  do,  instead  of  the  amount  of  riches  that  he 
can  accumulate. 

When  the  London  Company  planted  the  Virginia  settle- 
ment, down  on  the  banks  of  the  James,  and  founded  the 
first  English  settlement  in  America,  the  London  Company 
was  made  up  of  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  They 
were  blessed  of  the  King.  And  the  first  voyage  that  brought 
men  to  the  settlement  at  Jamestown  was  a  voyage  that  had 
been  royally  blessed  by  the  Chief  Bishop  in  the  city  of  Lon- 
don. It  was  distinctly  a  religious  exodus,  for  a  distinctly 
religious  purpose.  And  they  were  not  over  here  two  years 
until  they  had  the  notion  that  their  only  business  was  to 
shoot  Indians  and  find  gold.  And  from  1607  until  1622 
they  went  through  two  massacres  and  a  starving  time  and 
continuous  misery,  because  they  forgot  the  Christian  purpose 
of  the  founding  of  the  colony,  and  went  in  like  greedy  hogs 
to  get  as  much  as  they  could.  They  transported  yellow  clay 
from  Virginia  to  London  in  the  hope  that  it  was  gold; 
skinned  every  animal  they  could  shoot  down,  and  sold  the 
skin  to  get  rich.  Then  a  great  preacher,  John  Donne,  stood 
up  in  St.  Paul's,  in  London,  and  preached  the  first  mission- 
ary sermon  in  the  English  language,  telling  those  people 
that  in  the  beginning  God  did  not  teach  Noah  how  to  build 
a  boat  in  order  that  he  might  enrich  himself,  but  that  he 
might  preserve  himself;  that,  indeed,  the  whole  industry  of 
shipbuilding  was  revealed  to  man  by  God,  to  the  end,  not  that 
men  might  send  vessels  to  the  remote  corners  of  the  earth  to 
bring  back  riches  to  themselves,  but  that  they  might  carry 
missionaries  and  Bibles  and  food  to  those  that  were  in  need 
in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth;  that  the  value  of  ship- 
building was  to  be  measured,  not  by  the  riches  that  flowed 
back,  but  by  the  gospel  that  flowed  out  to  heathen  people. 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  65 

We  have  lost  such  notions  as  that  in  this  everyday  life.  A 
man  puts  his  dollar  into  business  because  he  believes  that  he 
can  get  a  dollar  and  six  cents  out  of  it.  He  does  not  put  his 
dollar  in  because  he  thinks  he  can  honor  God  in  that  busi- 
ness. Yet  here  we  have  people  going  hungry.  A  woman 
came  to  my  door  the  other  day  with  tears  in  her  eyes  and 
said,  "Please  give  me  five  cents  to  bury  my  baby."  Hungry 
and  ragged  herself,  she  had  a  dead  child  in  her  home,  and 
no  money  to  bury  it.  Men  who  have  money  will  keep  it  on 
interest  in  government  bonds  at  three  per  cent,  because  they 
cannot  trust  their  money  to  the  uncertainties  of  the  market. 
Why  don't  you  put  your  hundred  dollars  in  trade?  Because 
you  are  not  certain  it  is  going  to  return  to  you  with  usury. 
Rather  than  take  the  risk  of  loss,  you  will  hold  to  what  you 
have,  and  let  the  world  starve.  What  we  want  is  a  philan- 
thropy that  will  make  men  and  women  willing  to  sacrifice 
their  money  and  labor  for  the  sake  of  the  comfort  and  cheer 
they  can  bring  to  others.  And  I  don't  know  which  would 
preach  the  better  missionary  sermon,  the  man  that  would 
stand  in  the  pulpit  and  shout,  or  the  man  that  would  put  hia 
money  into  business  and  make  others  happy.  If  a  man  had 
a  hundred  dollars  in  his  pocket  this  morning,  and  wanted 
to  serve  God,  I  don't  know  which  way  he  would  serve  Him 
better — by  putting  his  money  into  the  market,  or  preaching 
a  sermon  in  the  pulpit.  We  must  change  the  industrial  out- 
look, and  in  some  way  or  other  produce  a  better  feeling 
between  the  masses,  before  the  world  will  be  evangelized. 
The  spirit  of  Christ  is  the  spirit  of  harmony  and  good-will. 
It  cannot  prevail  in  a  disturbed  industrial  society.  There 
is  a  political  aspect  of  the  question  that  I  have  not  time  to 
comment  upon  this  morning.  I  want  simply  to  present  the 
religious  aspect  of  the  question  to  you  to  think  about.  Boaz 
came  out  into  his  fields  and  spoke  a  blessing  upon  his  reap- 
ers. And  they  looked  up,  and  said  in  answer,  "God  be  with 
you/'  This  was  a  salutation  that  indicated  mutual  respect, 
mutual  sympathy,  mutual  good-will.  What  would  not  those 


64  LECTURES  ON  THE 

reapers  have  done  for  Boaz  if  he  had  needed  it?  What 
would  not  he  have  done  for  them  if  they  had  needed  his 
help?  There  was  a  bond  between  workman  and  employer, 
a  bond  that  was  deeper  than  the  money  bond.  Those  men 
were  not  earning  a  salary  merely;  they  were  working  for 
love.  You  can  ask  me  to  do  you  a  favor;  you  cannot  hire  me 
to  do  it.  The  best  service  I  can  render  you  is  the  service 
that  is  not  for  sale.  When  you  make  impossible  the  render- 
ing of  that  better  service,  and  drive  men  to  a  mere  dollar- 
and-cent  barter,  you  have  immediately  robbed  men  of  the 
common  basis  upon  which  they  can  draw  themselves  together 
into  strong  brotherhood  and  into  righteous  relationship. 
"God  bless  you,"  he  said;  and  they  said,  "God  be  with  you." 
And  he  went  through  the  field;  and  they  were  happy.  Do 
you  suppose  they  could  work  any  harder,  or  not,  after  they 
did  that?  Did  it  make  their  burden  easier  or  harder?  The 
test  of  an  overseer  in  any  position  in  life,  the  test  of  a 
preacher  over  his  church,  the  test  of  a  teacher  over  his  school, 
the  test  of  a  farmer  over  his  workmen,  the  superintendent 
over  his  foundry,  is  this — does  his  presence  lighten  the  work 
of  those  that  are  employed,  or  make  it  more  grievous?  You 
are  a  minister  over  a  church;  what  is  the  result?  Does  it 
make  it  easier  for  every  member  to  be  a  Christian,  or  does 
it  make  it  harder?  What  is  your  relation  to  the  men  and 
women  that  are  your  flock?  You  are  a  teacher.  Is  it  easier 
for  your  scholars  to  learn  because  you  are  their  teacher,  or 
is  it  a  harder  thing?  The  value  of  your  work  as  a  teacher  is 
measured  by  this  question.  You  are  an  overseer.  Does  your 
presence  in  the  shop  make  the  work  of  the  men  easier?  Is 
your  presence  a  source  of  help  or  a  source  of  hindrance? 
That  is  a  pretty  hard  question  to  answer.  When  I  walk  into 
my  class-room  and  visit  my  pupils,  is  my  presence  a  disturb- 
ance or  a  help?  I  am  valuable  in  the  proportion  that  I  am 
helpful.  I  am  not  valuable  if  I  am  a  disturbing  influence. 
When  you  go  before  the  people  as  a  preacher,  when  you  go 
into  their  homes,  does  your  preaching  and  your  visiting  make 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  65 

easier  the  life  they  are  trying  to  live  for  Jesus  Christ?  That 
is  what  you  are  in  the  world  for.  That  is  what  Boaz  was  try- 
ing to  do  for  his  servants — make  their  burdens  and  their 
work  easier.  What  we  need  to  study,  all  of  us,  is  this:  how 
can  we  make  it  easier  for  those  around  us  to  do  right? 
As  we  make  it  easier  for  them  to  do  right,  we  make  it  harder 
for  them  to  do  wrong.  There  was  just  such  a  relationship 
fostered  between  these  people  —  the  spirit  of  confidence 
and  good-will  that  made  the  presence  of  the  master  a  help 
and  an  inspiration  to  the  laborer. 

From  the  fifth  to  the  seventh  verse  you  have  the  picture 
of  the  stranger  at  the  gate.  We  often  sing  that  song,  "Be- 
hold the  stranger  at  the  door."  Boaz  in  this  scene  down  in 
the  harvest  field  is  typical  of  the  blessed  Christ  himself.  The 
steward  or  overseer  in  the  field  is  the  type  of  the  minister  in 
the  church.  Ruth  is  the  type  of  the  stranger  that  is  brought 
into  the  church.  Just  think  of  Boaz  as  the  Christ;  of  the 
man  who  answered  Boaz,  the  superintendent  or  overseer  in 
the  field,  as  the  minister  or  deacon  in  the  church;  and  of 
Ruth  as  the  type  of  the  common  member  who  has  been 
brought  in  out  of  Moab.  Then  study  these  three  characters, 
and  you  will  see  just  about  what  your  duty  is.  Boaz  comes 
into  the  field  like  the  Christ  came  into  this  world,  breathing 
good-will  and  kindness  and  sympathy  upon  everything  that 
He  touched.  What  is  his  first  word?  A  word  of  kindness 
to  those  who  were  working  for  him.  Next  he  notices  this 
damsel.  "Who  is  this  damsel?"  Inquiring  about  the 
stranger  that  came  from  without,  noticing  everybody,  giving 
to  everybody  a  word  of  help  and  encouragement  and  good 
cheer.  That  was  the  work  of  Christ  anticipated  in  the  life 
of  Boaz.  The  overseer  answered  back  promptly  to  all  the 
questions,  and  told  the  whole  truth.  He  knew  that  Ruth 
was  a  stranger,  and  he  gave  the  whole  truth  to  Boaz  when 
he  asked  about  her.  She  is  here,  she  is  doing  thus  and  so; 
giving  you  clearly  the  fact  that  the  minister  stands  between 
Christ  and  his  people,  and  has  a  two-fold  duty— that  of  tell- 


66  LECTURES  ON  THE 

ing  the  truth  to  Christ  and  of  knowing  thoroughly  every- 
body that  works  in  Christ's  fields.  That  is  your  duty.  It 
will  be  a  sad  day  for  us  that  are  preachers  if  anybody  in  the 
years  to  come  shall  stand  up  before  the  judgment  bar  and 
say,  "No  man  cared  for  my  soul,,  no  man  knew  me  in  the 
world."  People  come  into  this  chapel  and  sit  down  on  a 
Sunday  morning,  and  walk  out,  and  nobody  says  a  word  to 
them.  That  is  wrong.  Euth  was  noticed  by  the  overseer, 
and  also  by  Boaz  himself.  You  have  no  idea  what  a  tremen- 
dous responsibility  rests  upon  the  church  that  does  not  care 
to  extend  a  word  of  welcome  and  pay  attention  to  visitors 
that  come  into  it. 

What  if  God  should  come  to-night  and  knock  at  your 
heart  and  say  to  you,  "Who  has  been  gleaning  in  my  fields 
under  your  oversight?7'  and  you  would  have  to  look  up  and 
say,  "God,  I  know  not."  What  a  condemnation!  What  a 
comment  upon  the  indifference  of  men  who  pretend  to  live 
for  Christ,  who  are  in  his  field  reaping  and  gathering  the 
harvest,  and  yet  holding  out  no  hand  of  welcome  and  no  out- 
look or  token  to  the  stranger  that  comes  to  glean  within  the 
gates!  Every  time  a  man  or  woman  comes  inside  the  door 
of  a  church  for  the  first  time,  every  Christian  present  ought 
to  pray  to  God  that  that  one  shall  come  continuously,  and 
everything  that  you  do  ought  to  point  toward  that  consum- 
mation. Who  brought  that  person  to  church?  Will  you 
say  that  it  was  luck  that  he  happened  in — Kuth's  luck?  Or 
has  God  set  his  steps  this  way?  And  if  we  turn  our  faces 
away  and  talk  to  our  friends  and  neglect  the  stranger,  we 
simply  put  up  the  fences  and  shut  out  from  Zion  those 
whom  God  intended  to  be  in.  Who  is  going  to  answer  for 
it?  I  know  how  easy  it  is,  when  church  is  over,  to  talk  to  3 
few  friends  whom  you  like;  sometimes  to  only  one,  because 
you  like  the  one;  and  it  is  your  own  personal  satisfaction 
and  selfish  love  that  lead  you  to  interfere  with  the  whole  cause 
of  Christ.  That  is  wrong.  I  would  like  to  see  more  people 
of  our  church  standing  back  at  the  door  when  the  service  is 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  67 

over,  saying  a  kind  word  to  those  that  have  come  in.  I  want 
you  to  understand  that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  neglect  anybody 
in  the  multitude.  The  very  least  pauper,  the  most  miser- 
able outcast  that  came  to  Him  was  seen  of  Him  and  helped. 
He  knew  no  condition  beneath  His  notice.  There  was  no 
time  in  His  blessed  life  when  He  could  not  turn  aside  and 
do  good  where  good  was  needed.  In  our  own  lives,  as  we 
come  to  understand  that,  to  take  on  more  and  more  of  that 
characteristic  of  Christ's  life,  will  we  come  to  understand 
the  power  that  there  is  in  sympathetic  ministration  to  the 
wants  of  others.  How  are  we  treating  the  strangers  at  the  \ 
gate?  As  Boaz  regarded  Kuth?  Or  are  we,  with  cold  indif-  ) 
ference,  allowing  them  to  come  and  go,  until,  disappointed 
and  disgusted  and  broken-hearted  and  cold  and  indifferent, 
they  rise  up  and  curse  the  church  and  go  out  into  outer 
darkness?  Boaz  had  no  love  for  Ruth  here,  except  the 
desire  that  he  had  as  a  Jew  to  do  a  Jew's  duty.  He  was  the 
type  of  the  unselfish  Christ  doing  the  thing  which  he  be- 
lieved he  was  to  do,  and  doing  it  with  all  the  sympathy  and 
tact  and  courtesy  that  came  from  a  polished  and  cultured 
Christian  soul.  Some  people  don't  talk  because  they  think 
they  don't  know  how  to  talk.  If  your  heart  is  right,  God 
will  put  the  right  word  upon  your  lips.  You  need  not 
worry  about  your  grammar  nor  your  rhetoric,  about  where 
your  hands  are  when  you  talk.  If  your  heart  is  right,  God 
will  shape  the  language  to  the  hungry  one  and  give  the 
comfort  that  is  needed.  I  want  you  to  read  carefully  this 
Book  of  Ruth.  I  want  you  to  think  of  Boaz  as  the  type  of 
the  Christ  that  was  to  be,  of  Ruth  as  yourself  coming  into 
the  new  relationship  in  the  church.  In  the  light  of  that  you 
will  begin  to  see  something  of  the  grandeur  and  beauty 
which  springs  up  here  in  this  marvelous  pastoral,  this  reve- 
lation of  the  coming  of  the  Christ,  this  joyous  prophecy  of 
the  majestic  entrance  of  the  King  of  kings  into  his  reign 
of  righteousness. 


68  LECTURES  ON  THE 


h  LECTURE  VI. 

In  the  second  chapter,  at  the  seventh  verse,  you  will  find 
these  words:  "And  she  said,  I  pray  you,  let  me  glean  and 
gather  after  the  reapers  among  the  sheaves;  so  she  came  and 
hath  continued  even  from  the  morning  until  now,  that  she 
tarried  a  little  in  the  house."  Here  is  the  picture  of  three 
characters — Boaz,  the  owner  of  the  land;  the  steward  or 
overseer;  and  Ruth,  the  gleaner.  And  these  three,  as  I  said 
previously,  typify  Christ,  the  minister  of  the  gospel,  and  the 
man  or  woman  who  comes  into  the  church  of  God.  And  as 
these  three  forces  are  at  work  in  the  church  to-day,  you 
will  get  hy  a  careful  study  of  the  Book  of  Ruth  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end,  the  picture  of  their  right  relationship 
to  each  other  and  to  the  church  of  Christ.  You  will  see  in 
the  character  of  Boaz  the  spirit  of  the  Christ  and  his  work 
in  the  church.  You  will  see  in  the  attitude  of  this  overseer, 
in  his  treatment  of  Boaz  and  his  treatment  of  Ruth,  the 
right  relation  of  the  minister  to  Christ  on  the  one  side,  and 
his  relation  to  the  church  on  the  other.  And  the  character 
of  Ruth  will  give  us  a  pretty  clear  idea  of  how  the  soul 
comes  out  from  Moab  and  enters  into  the  land  of  promise, 
comes  out  of  wrong  and  enters  into  right,  comes  out  of 
darkness  and  enters  into  light,  comes  out  of  the  world  and 
enters  into  Christ's  kingdom,  a  better  understanding  of  our 
own  lives,  our  relationship  to  the  church,  to  the  ministry  of 
the  church,  and  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Note  what  fol- 
lows: "Then  said  Boaz  unto  Ruth,  Hearest  thou  not,  my 
daughter?  Go  not  to  glean  in  another  field,  neither  go  from 
hence,  but  abide  here  fast  by  my  maidens:  Let  thine  eyes  be 
on  the  field  that  they  do  reap,  and  go  thou  after  them:  have 
I  not  charged  the  young  men  that  they  shall  not  touch 
thee?  and  when  thou  art  athirst,  go  unto  the  vessels,  and 
drink  of  that  which  the  young  men  have  drawn." 

Note  carefully  the  conduct  or  behavior  of  Ruth.     In  the 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  69 

first  place,  she  was  an  industrious  girl.  The  world  has  no  need 
of  any  other  kind.  An  idle,  worthless,  lazy,  indolent  girl — what 
does  she  amount  to  ?  The  young  man  who  is  a  shirker,  whose 
motto  is,  not  how  much,  but  how  little  can  I  do  and  get  on 
in  this  world,  is  not  worthy  of  a  place  in  this  world  nor  fit 
to  go  into  any  other.  In  the  next  place,  she  was  a  modest 
girl.  She  was  not  a  loud-mouthed,  blatant  character.  In  a 
quiet,  modest  way  she  did  the  work  that  God  had  laid  upon 
her,  although  she  did  not  know  that  it  was  the  Lord's  hand  1 
was  directing  her.  I  speak  of  her  modesty  because  it  seems  'I 
to  me  to-day,  more  and  more,  that  young  people  need  to 
learn  lessons  of  modesty.  And  by  modesty  I  mean  a  spirit 
of  subordination  of  ourselves  to  our  elders,  a  right  respect 
to  the  history  of  the  past  as  it  has  been  made,  a  right  sur- 
render to  old  and  established  customs  and  the  experience 
which  the  revelation  of  God  has  put  into  this  world  for 
young  men  and  women  to  stand  by,  the  history  of  superior 
experience  and  higher  knowledge.  To  set  ourselves  up  above 
and  superior  to  these  things  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  exceed- 
ingly immodest  thing.  Yet  how  often  young  people  are  apt 
to  need  the  rebuke  that  Paul  was  obliged  to  utter  against 
those  to  whom  he  wrote,  "Some  of  you  have  not  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  I  say  this  to  your  shame."  Some  of  you  have 
ignored  the  past,  your  father's  advice,  your  mother's  coun- 
sel, your  brother's  kindly  interest;  you  have  forgotten  what 
your  minister  taught  you,  what  your  teacher  said  to  you; 
you  have  set  up  yourselves  as  knowing  more  than  all  these; 
you  are  trying  to  sow  in  fields  that  have  been  condemned, 
and  where,  if  you  do  sow,  you  will  gather  only  the  whirl- 
wind and  destruction.  You  think  you  know  even  more  than 
the  wisdom  of  the  past.  You  go  on  repeating  the  follies  of 
yesterday,  whereas,  if  you  were  to  sit  down  and  study  the 
wisdom  and  experience  of  the  past,  you  would  live  better. 
It  takes  a  modest  person  to  do  that,  one  that  is  willing  to 
profit  by  the  counsels  of  others.  One  of  the  marks  of  that 
great  preacher,  Brother  Quinter,  one  of  the  greatest  in  his 


70  LECTURES  ON  THE 

generation,  one  of  his  peculiarities  from  his  boyhood,  as  re- 
lated in  his  biography,  is  that  he  enjoyed  the  company  of 
older  men.  He  did  not  dictate  to  them,  but  in  meekness 
and  submission  he  listened  to  what  the  elders  of  the  church 
had  to  say,  and  then  tried  to  profit  by  it.  Thus  he  rose  to 
a  high  position  in  the  church  long  before  many  others  who 
set  aside  the  traditions  of  the  church  and  the  advice  of  the 
elders,  and  had  to  learn,  after  years  of  bitter  experience,  that 
they  were  wrong. 

The  modest  spirit  of  Ruth  showed  from  the  time  she 
entered  the  field  of  Boaz.  She  did  not  have  to  be  knocked 
down  and  beaten  into  sense.  She  had  learned  to  surrender 
herself  and  to  be  a  fit  vessel  for  the  Master's  use.  That  is 
what  we  all  need,  more  and  more,  in  this  world  to-day. 
There  are  some  that  get  the  idea — many  young  people  do — 
that  they  have  become  smart,  smarter  than  anybody  else  that 
ever  lived.  They  go  out  asserting  this  superior  knowledge, 
arguing  with  those  older  and  wiser  than  themselves,  setting 
themselves  up  in  high  places,  doing  the  thing  which  Christ 
condemned  others  for  doing,  "sitting  in  Moses'  seat."  Many 
of  them  want  to  do  that.  What  God  needs  to-day  is  a  mul- 
titude of  young  people  in  their  teens — thirteen,  fourteen, 
sixteen,  eighteen — who  are  willing  to  go  like  Ruth  into  the 
fields  of  Christ  and  glean  for  the  privilege  of  being  there, 
that  after  a  while  they  may  be  maidens  of  His  and  sons  of 
His  and  adopted  into  the  church  itself.  Another  thing  I 
call  your  attention  to  in  the  character  of  this  wonderful 
woman,  Ruth.  She  knew  how  to  talk.  She  had  good  man- 
ners. She  was  courteous.  If  you  read  all  through  this 
book,  you  will  find  no  single  word  that  fell  from  her  lips  that 
was  immodest  or  discourteous  to  anybody.  Anybody  whose 
spirit  is  right  and  whose  heart  is  sweet  is  a  courteous  person. 
If  you  affect  to  be  other  than  your  heart  is,  you  are  going 
to  be  discourteous  at  some  time  or  other;  you  can't  help  it. 
Here,  then,  you  see  that  the  courtesy  of  the  woman  shows 
that  her  heart  and  her  life  were  right  in  the  sight  of  God. 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  71 


I  call  your  attention,  young  girls,  to  the  place  where 
found  Kuth.  You  know,  if  you  have  read  on  to  the  end  of 
this,  he  married  her.  Boaz  found  Kuth  in  the  harvest  field 
at  work  —  the  best  place  under  the  sun  to  find  a  woman. 
More  than  that,  Euth  found  Boaz  down  in  his  own  field, 
looking  after  his  own  business  —  working.  That  is  the  best 
place  to  find  a  husband,  a  wife.  Now,  a  few  things  to  beware 
of.  In  the  first  place,  beware  of  a  woman  who  is  a  gadder. 
Do  you  know  what  a  gadder  is?  A  woman  that  runs  around 
and  talks  more  than  she  knows;  and  who  spreads  a  flame  of 
gossip  through  the  community;  and  sets  the  church  on  fire 
with  maliciousness;  and  destroys  the  power  of  God's  king- 
dom and  the  possibility  of  his  righteousness  in  the  earth. 
Young  men  are  not  worth  anything  who  gad  or  gossip.  You 
know  we  always  have  in  this  school  what  we  call  the  tail  end 
of  the  procession.  We  organize  our  school  and  we  start  you 
all  in  alike.  In  the  course  of  two  weeks  some  of  our  students 
stand  close  to  the  faculty  and  government  of  the  school. 
They  stand  up  high  in  the  procession.  They  are  the  stu- 
dents who,  by  their  inherent  worth,  have  won  the  respect  of 
the  institution.  Then  it  gradually  moves  downward,  until 
somebody  is  at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  Beware  of  those 
that  stand  low  down  in  the  procession.  It  does  not  matter 
what  procession  it  is.  It  is  infinitely  better  for  you  to  marry 
some  one  who  is  first  class  in  something  than  seventh  class 
in  something  else.  You  had  better  live  with  a  first-class 
farmer  than  a  fifth-class  preacher.  You  have  the  authority 
of  the  Bible  for  that.  Every  man  ought  to  excel  in  some- 
thing, stand  well  in  something.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  our 
best  things  that  our  affiliations  ought  to  be  made,  for  then 
we  are  held  strongest  to  our  best.  Beware  of  a  slothful 
woman.  That  is  a  polite  word  for  laziness.  Euth  was  an 
industrious  woman.  Beware  of  a  lazy  person.  Think  of  a 
woman  in  a  home  who  is  lazy,  who  allows  the  cobwebs  to 
grow  on  the  ceiling,  the  dust  to  multiply  on  the  dishes  — 
carelessness,  sloth,  ignorance  and  filth  fostered  by  her  in  the 


72  LECTURES  ON  THE 

home.  What  sooner  drives  a  man  to  drink  and  distraction 
than  that!  If  I  could  walk  up  through  your  rooms  this 
afternoon,  as  I  have  done  in  the  past,  and  see  how  you  live, 
I  could  write  on  your  door  my  judgment  of  the  kind  of  home 
you  will  have.  Beware  of  sloth.  Never  think  you  can  marry 
and  live  with  a  young  man  who  has  been  lazy  for  a  year,  but 
who  is  going  to  get  to  work  and  work  hard  for  you  just  be- 
cause he  is  yours.  That  is  the  worst  mistake  on  earth.  If  he  is 
too  lazy  to  work  to  get  you,  he  will  be  lazier  still  to  work 
for  you  when  he  gets  you.  The  man  who  is  not  zealous  to 
get  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  who  is  too  lazy  to  go  to 
church,  too  lazy  to  pray,  too  lazy  to  gather  his  family  around 
him  in  the  morning  for  prayers,  too  lazy  to  open  his  Bible 
and  explain  it  to  his  children,  too  lazy  to  go  to  the  Sunday- 
school,  too  lazy  to  think  about  the  missionary  cause,  too 
lazy  to  read  the  church  paper  when  it  comes  into  his  home, 
is  not  working  hard  enough  to  win  heaven. 

Another  thing  beware  of.  Beware  of  a  sloppy  companion. 
I  don't  know  how  Ruth  was  dressed,  but  if  I  were  to  picture 
her  down  there  in  the  field  in  her  poverty,  in  her  rags,  I 
would  paint  her  with  a  neatness  that  was  the  index  of  the 
life  that  she  was  living,  and  that  showed  in  her  whole  man- 
ner and  expression.  Beware  of  any  young  person  in  this 
world  who  speaks  against  his  own  parents.  I  sat  one  day  in 
a  street-car.  It  was  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  where  you 
would  expect  better  things.  In  the  car  was  a  professor  in 
Harvard  University,  talking  to  a  young  woman.  I  could  not 
avoid  hearing  the  conversation.  And  as  this  professor  was  a 
prospective  tutor  of  mine,  my  curiosity  was  aroused  to  study 
him.  I  listened  to  what  he  was  saying.  Among  other  things, 
his  conversation  drifted  to  his  home.  He  said:  "I  had  good, 
honest  parents.  My  mother  was  an  honest  woman.  My 
father  was  gentlemanly  enough,  as  such  things  go.  But, 
you  know,  they  were  not  the  kind  of  people  you  would  care 
to  meet."  I  never  went  into  his  class.  Beware  of  those  that 
speak  slightingly  of  the  mother  that  nursed  them  through 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  7& 

sickness  and  pain  and  distress;  of  the  father  who  provided  for 
them  when  they  were  little  and  helpless.  Beware  of  the 
ingratitude  that  is  stamped  upon  every  expression  of  disre- 
spect to  father  and  mother.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  you 
should  be  clannish  and  disguise  the  truth.  There  may  be 
things  in  your  family  line  that  you  are  not  specially  proud 
of.  Keep  your  mouth  shut  about  them.  I  don't  mean  that 
you  shall  go  out  and  lie  about  them  and  praise  them  inordi- 
nately. I  simply  ask  that  you  speak  respectfully  of  them 
when  you  do  speak;  and  when  you  have  not  that  kind  of 
thing  to  say,  to  remain  silent.  I  don't  know  what  kind  of  a 
father  Ruth  had  out  in  heathen  Moab,  nor  the  kind  of  a 
mother  that  bore  her  in  that  heathen  land.  But  they  cer- 
tainly had  something  of  the  spirit  of  righteousness  in  them 
afar  off,  for  they  taught  their  daughter  good  sense.  In  spite 
of  all  this  affliction  upon  her,  she  never  uttered  a  word  of 
reproach  or  rebuke  against  anybody.  She  simply  felt;  but 
she  spoke  nothing.  Silence  is  golden  sometimes.  Consider 
the  charity  and  devotion  of  a  young  man  to  his  home.  I 
would  not  live  with  anybody,  nor  would  I  have  anything  to 
do  with  anybody,  that  had  not  enough  respect  for  his  ances- 
tors to  keep  that  in  mind. 

There  is  another  characteristic  of  her.  Beware  of  any- 
body that  hates  to  do  home  work.  You  know,  nowadays,  it 
is  stylish  for  women  to  be  doctors  and  lawyers  and  school 
teachers  and  members  of  Twentieth  Century  Clubs  and  edi- 
tors of  magazines  that  teach  other  people  how  to  do  things. 
In  fact,  a  sort  of  notion  prevails  that  women  ought  to  do- 
anything  but  the  thing  they  ought  to  do.  When  you  select 
one  for  life,  you  had  better  choose  one  that  knows  how  to- 
run  a  home,  whether  she  knows  how  to  run  a  newspaper  or 
not.  You  had  better  live  with  one  that  understands  the 
routine  of  a  day's  living  in  the  house  than  one  that  knows 
how  to  make  a  stump  speech  on  questionable  politics.  She 
may  not  be  so  brilliant  with  her  tongue,  but  she  will  be  infi- 
nitely more  helpful  in  her  life.  Think  about  these  things. 


74  LECTURES  ON  THE 

Some  of  you  will  get  caught  with  outward  show.  It  is  gen- 
uine worth  that  counts.  Many  a  young  man  does  foolish  and 
inconsiderate  things  because  he  is  not  fair  even  to  himself. 
If  you  would  write  down  on  a  piece  of  paper  the  attributes 
in  life  that  you  love,  that  you  could  live  with,  that  you  could 
ask  God's  blessing  upon,  they  would  not  at  all  fit  the  person 
you  like  best.  What  is  the  matter  here?  You  are  not  true 
to  your  better  self.  You  are  caught  in  the  mazes  of  some 
trick.  Now,  here  was  Euth,  at  work  in  the  wheat  field, 
gathering  up  the  sickled  grain,  doing  the  routine  of  manual 
service,  wearing  in  her  act  the  badge  of  beggary,  and  doing 
it  all  with  a  grace,  with  a  submission,  with  a  devotion  that 
made  her  famous  throughout  the  land,  and  won  for  her  as 
husband  the  best  man  in  Bethlehem,  and  one  of  the  best  in 
the  world,  no  doubt,  in  that  day. 

How  did  he  care  for  her?  In  the  first  place,  he  did  not 
deprive  her  of  the  respect  that  was  hers  because  she  was  a 
toiler.  That  is,  he  honored  her  in  her  work.  He  did  not  say, 
"Why,  Ruth,  I  am  astonished  to  see  you  down  here  at  that 
kind  of  thing.  Get  out  of  here  and  go  up  to  the  house.  I 
will  give  you  a  better  place."  He  finds  her  in  an  honest 
place,  where  she  had  a  right  to  be  under  the  laws  of  God. 
He  recognizes  that  right,  and  simply  tries  to  make  easy  her 
work  in  that  place.  Do  you  remember  when  Christ  came 
and  found  men  fishing,  and  called  out  to  them  from  the 
shore,  "What  have  you  got?"  They  said  nothing;  they  had 
been  fishing  without  Him.  And  he  said,  "Cast  your  net  on 
the  other  side."  Why  didn't  He  say,  "If  you  have  not  caught 
anything,  quit  fishing,  and  we  will  go  into  the  lumber  busi- 
ness or  something  else  in  which  we  can  make  some  money"? 
Stick  to  your  fishing,  and  with  His  help  it  will  pay.  Cast 
your  net  on  the  other  side;  but  cast  you  net. 

God  does  not  call  people  out  of  their  places  in  life  into 
others.  He  simply  glorifies  them  in  the  place  where  they 
are.  If  you  are  a  farmer,  you  will  farm  all  the  better  be- 
cause you  have  joined  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ.  You 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  75 

don't  have  to  quit  farming  because  you  have  joined  the 
church.  If  you  are  anything  that  is  right — a  fisherman,  a 
gleaner,  a  workman  of  any  sort  whatever,  anywhere,  you 
can  exalt  that  place  by  taking  the  grace  of  God  into  your 
heart  and  living  a  Christian  life  in  that  place.  God  does  not 
transform  us  from  place  to  place,  but  he  transforms  our  life 
that  it  may  glorify  the  place  where  he  finds  us,  teaching  us 
to  be  content  with  the  thing  we  are  doing,  if  we  are  doing  it 
as  well  as  we  can.  Here  Boaz  found  her,  a  simple,  modest, 
honest,  courteous  woman,  gleaning.  He  said:  "Glean  on.  I 
will  make  it  easier  for  you  to  do  the  work." 

In  the  second  place,  his  concern  was  genuine.  It  was  not 
affected  politeness.  He  did  not  say  one  thing  and  mean 
another,  as  the  half  of  us  do  when  we  talk  to  each  other. 
It  was  a  genuine  concern,  a  sincere  concern.  It  was  the 
kind  of  sincerity  that  an  honest  man  always  displays  when 
he  comes  into  touch  with  honest  people — no  gloss,  no  veneer, 
no  varnish,  just  the  truth.  He  tells  her  frankly  what  he  has 
learned.  Again  his  concern  was  thorough.  He  was  not  con- 
cerned in  her  age  alone,  nor  in  the  color  of  her  eyes,  as  an 
idle  curiosity.  He  was  concerned  in  her  life.  What  is  the 
use  of  our  tripping  around  among  each  other  trying  to  find 
out  little  eccentricities  of  character?  Why  don't  we  know 
each  other's  lives?  When  we  ask  questions,  why  don't  we 
get  to  the  heart  of  the  matter?  A  man  comes  into  church, 
and  you  go  to  him  and  say,  "I  am  glad  you  came  to  church 
to-night."  That  is  all  right  in  its  way.  But  it  is  so  out- 
sidish,  so  far  from  the  central  thing  that  you  might  have 
said,  so  remote  from  the  touch  of  life  with  which  Christ 
would  have  spoken.  Here  is  a  good  question  for  you  to  ask 
when  you  meet  a  man  who  comes  into  church  or  into  your 
life  companionship.  Ask  this  question  of  yourself:  How 
would  Christ  meet  that  person  if  he  were  in  my  place? 
And,  knowing  how  He  would  do,  do  that  way  yourself.  It 
was  a  thorough  concern,  as  well  as  a  genuine  one.  It  was  a 
helpful  concern;  it  was  a  protective  concern. 


76  LECTURES  ON  THE 

It  was — what  shall  I  say?  I  know  no  word  to  characterize 
it.  It  was  a  provisional  concern — that  is,  he  provided  for 
her.  He  made  her  rewards  greater  than  she  could  have  made 
them  herself.  She  gleaned  more  because  Boaz  was  helping 
than  she  could  have  gleaned  alone.  He  enriched  her.  And 
she  gleaned  how  much?  "It  was  about  an  ephah  of  barley." 
She  gleaned  as  much  as  she  could  carry;  loaded  down  away 
beyond  the  ordinary  gleanings  because  Boaz  made  it  easier 
for  her  to  glean,  provided  for  her  in  her  gleaning.  There  is 
a  lesson  here.  The  spirit  of  all  things  is  the  spirit  of  giving, 
not  of  withholding.  To  store  up  is  an  anomaly  in  Nature; 
it  is  unusual,  it  is  a  remarkable  thing.  To  give  is  to  be  like 
Nature,  to  give  is  to  be  like  God.  He  gave  her  more  than 
she  could  gather  of  herself,  typifying,  it  seems  to  me,  in  a 
most  remarkable  way,  a  remarkable  fact  of  life.  When  you 
come  in  touch  with  my  life,  you  have  one  solemn  duty — to 
make  it  richer  than  it  could  have  been  without  you.  When 
I  come  in  touch  with  yours,  I  have  one  solemn  duty — to 
make  it  better  than  it  could  have  been  without  me.  To 
make  it  worse  is  sin.  To  leave  it  untouched  is  impossible. 
To  make  it  better  is  to  do  what  Christ  did.  Boaz  was  a  type 
of  the  Christ  because  he  enriched  her  life.  Even  in  tem- 
porary things  she  was  the  gainer  by  his  aid  and  co-opera- 
tion, teaching  us,  if  we  had  time  to  press  the  thought  to  a 
conclusion,  that  the  best  partnerships  of  life  are  those  in 
which  Christ  is  a  party;  that  the  greatest  gains  in  this  world 
come  when  we  work  with  God,  and  not  against  Him. 

Verse  ten  points  out  a  grateful  heart.  Here  again  her 
deep  and  touching  humility  shows  itself  in  the  words:  "Why 
have  I  found  grace  in  thine  eyes,  *  *  *  seeing  I  am  a 
stranger?"  She  had  been  favored,  and  she  did  not  do  what 
some  girls  would  do  if  favors  were  shown  to  them  from  a 
sincere  heart — walk  away  and  never  return  thanks.  She 
showed  the  gratitude  of  her  heart  for  the  favor  that  she 
received.  I  saw  a  woman  come  into  a  street-car  the  other 
day.  A  man  got  up  and  offered  his  seat  to  her.  She  sat 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  77 

down  and  took  it  just  as  a  pig  would  take  an  ear  of  corn 
from  a  man.  Ruth,  from  Moab,  the  land  of  the  heathen, 
would  not  do  that.  She  "fell  on  her  face"  and  expressed 
the  gratitude  of  her  heart  to  her  benefactor.  You  can 
afford  always  to  stand  in  the  place  of  help  long  enough  to 
thank  the  helper.  The  old  Greeks  could  tarry  long  enough 
to  build  their  triumphal  monuments  on  the  fields  where 
victory  came  to  them.  We  stop  on  the  field  of  conquest  to 
build  monuments  of  triumph  and  express  our  gratitude  and 
praise.  As  you  come  down  the  Eiver  Rhine  and  enter  the 
first  narrows  almost  opposite  the  Mouse  Tower,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  France,  but  on  German  soil,  is  that  magnificent 
Denkmal,  the  great  national  monument  that  commemorates 
the  triumphs  of  the  armies  under  Bismarck  and  Frederick 
in  1870.  It  stands  on  the  very  outposts  of  the  German 
Empire.  It  was  placed  where  they  were  helped  in  their  con- 
quest— put  up  as  a  token  of  their  gratitude.  When  a  Ger- 
man comes  down  the  Rhine,  his  hat  goes  off  and  tears  fill 
his  eyes,  and  he  sings  "The  Watch  on  the  Rhine. "  He  has 
the  patriotic  gratitude  of  hearts  that  recognize  the  place 
where  they  have  been  helped.  Some  of  us  have  been  helped 
of  God  in  the  church;  we  have  been  restored  from  sickness, 
we  have  been  made  prosperous;  we  have  been  saved  from 
great  temptation  and  sin;  we  have  been  delivered  time  and 
time  again  by  God's  interposition;  and  we  have  not  one  sin- 
gle Ebenezer  up,  not  one.  That  is  the  most  ungrateful  thing 
that  I  can  think  of. 

There  is  in  the  Old  Testament  this  ringing  question:  "Will 
a  man  rob  God?"  Of  course  you  will  answer,  No.  But  I 
ask  you  this  afternoon,  if  God  has  helped  you  here  and  you 
have  never  blessed  him  for  it,  "Will  a  man  rob  God?"  Has 
not  a  man  robbed  God?  You  can  say  to  yourselves  that  if 
you  have  given  a  man  a  dollar,  and  he  comes  and  hands  it 
back,  there  is  no  special  reason  why  you  should  thank  him 
for  the  return  of  the  dollar.  You  come  into  my  room  and 
say,  "I  would  like  to  borrow  your  book."  You  keep  it  a  week 


78  LECTURES  ON  THE 

or  two  and  bring  it  back,  and  say  to  me,  "I  am  much 
obliged."  We  have  come  to  feel  that  when  we  have  done  a 
favor,  and  the  favor  flows  back  to  us,  we  owe  no  thanks  for 
it.  The  man  who  gets  a  favor  thanks,  but  the  man  who  did 
the  favor  does  not  thank.  But  you  can't  hide  behind  such 
an  argument  as  that.  You  have  never  done  anything  for 
God  worth  speaking  about;  He  has  done  everything  for  you.. 
He  has  sent  His  Son  into  the  world  for  you.  What  have  you 
done  for  Him  in  comparison?  He  sends  His  Holy  Spirit  to 
quicken  your  hearts  and  lead  you  to  holiness;  He  gives  you 
all  that ;  He  keeps  pressing  it  upon  you.  We  are  all  open  to. 
the  charge  of  base  ingratitude.  We  are  not  grateful.  Some 
of  you  will  go  down  in  a  few  minutes  to  the  table  and  bow 
your  heads,  and  not  even  thank  God  for  the  food  you  eaL 
You  will  think  about  some  foolish  thing  instead.  You  will 
go  into  prayer-meeting  and  kneel  because  you  have  to,  out  of 
respect  to  your  associates;  out  of  respect  to  God  you  do 
nothing.  Some  of  you  go  to  church  and  take  part  in  the 
services  because  it  is  expected,  simply  because  you  want  to* 
conform  to  what  is  naturally  expected  of  you.  You  don't 
think  of  the  duty  you  owe  to  God  in  singing  a  hymn,  in 
uttering  a  prayer,  in  praying  for  the  preacher,  in  listening 
to  the  sermon,  in  speaking  to  the  visitor  and  stranger  in  the 
church.  This  is  how  you  can  express  your  gratitude  to  God. 
If  He  has  ever  blessed  you,  give  a  glass  of  cold  water  to  a 
pauper.  If  He  has  ever  blessed  you,  give  in  His  name  a 
blessing  of  your  own  to  those  that  need  it;  for  "When  you 
have  done  it  to  the  least  of  these,  you  have  done  it  unto  me." 
He  will  write  it  down  in  the  book  the  right  way.  What  is 
the  lesson?  Let  us  all  try  to  glorify  Him  more  and  more.  A 
heart  of  gratitude,  a  grateful  heart,  is  a  great  heart,  a  large 
heart,  an  enlarging  heart,  a  heart  fuller  and  fuller  of  love 
and  gratitude  to  God. 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  79 


LECTUKE  VII. 

If,  in  your  school  life,  the  teacher  has  given  you  help, 
has  been  an  aid  to  you  in  making  more  of  your  life  than  you 
could  have  made  of  it  without  aid,  you  owe  that  teacher 
your  gratitude,  and  ought  to  express  it.  It  is  a  type  of  how 
all  your  life  ought  to  be  ordered.  It  seems  to  me  that  life, 
after  all,  when  it  is  rightly  lived,  is  but  a  series  of  expres- 
sions of  gratitude.  If  we  come  to  look  at  it  aright,  we  don't 
live  an  hour  in  which  we  cannot  be  helped  by  somebody  in 
some  way.  A  man's  life  ought  to  be  a  constant  thanksgiv- 
ing. We  ought  to  do  what  the  Bible  commands,  "Pray  with- 
out ceasing,  giving  thanks  always."  Whoever  does  not  do  that 
is  a  miserly,  ungrateful  whelp.  He  has  closed  up  the  foun- 
tains of  his  gratitude.  He  has  lived  in  this  world  without 
knowing  what  it  is  to  live  aright.  He  is  false  to  God,  and  he 
can  never  grow.  Over  in  Marblehead,  Massachusetts,  an  old 
sailor,  drunk,  staggered  into  a  church  and  heard  a  sermon. 
The  sermon  sobered  him.  The  prayer  service  at  the  close 
of  the  sermon  converted  him.  He  went  out  of  that  a  con- 
verted man,  anxious  to  join  the  church  and  do  right.  On 
his  way  home  he  got  to  thinking  about  this:  "Tough  old 
soul  that  I  am,  I  went  down  there  drunk  to  have  a  good 
time,  and  here  I  am  converted.  Who  did  all  this  for  me? 
How  changed  I  am!  Why,  my  God  did  this  for  me;  it  is  the 
gift  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Just  think  of  what  he  has 
done  for  me  to-night!  He  shall  never  hear  the  last  of  it." 
That  is  the  right  spirit;  never  going  to  let  Him  hear  the  last 
of  it.  As  long  as  he  lived  he  was  going  to  keep  saying  his 
thanksgiving  for  that  converting  power  in  his  life.  If  some 
of  you  had  been  converted,  you  would  have  hung  your  head 
and  slunk  away  like  a  dummy.  You  would  never  have  given 
thanks  in  the  church,  nor  in  the  prayer-meeting;  never  spo- 
ken anything  to  any  one  about  it. 


-80  LECTURES  ON  THE 

I  read  the  other  day  of  an  old  man  in  a  little  town,  who 
went  down  to  the  post  office.  A  little  girl  was  giving  out  the 
letters.  They  had  been  having  a  big  revival  in  the  town,  and 
she  was  very  much  interested  in  it.  The  old  man  went  over 
to  the  fire  to  warm  himself,  and  inquired  for  his  mail.  The 
little  girl  brought  the  conversation  around  to  the  subject  of 
the  revival  service.  She  said,  among  other  things,  "Several 
of  us  have  been  wishing  in  our  hearts  that  you  would  be  con- 
verted and  join  the  church."  And  he  said,  "Why,  Miss,  I 
have  been  a  member  of  the  church  for  forty  years."  She 
said:  "I  beg  your  pardon.  I  would  not  have  spoken  like  that, 
but  I  never  saw  you  in  Sunday-school;  I  never  saw  you  in  the 
prayer-meeting;  I  never  saw  you  take  any  active  part  in  the 
church;  I  did  not  know  you  were  a  church  member."  The 
old  man  went  home  and  called  his  wife  to  him  and  said: 
•"Mam,  I  guess  I  have  not  been  much  of  a  Christian.  My 
name  has  been  on  the  church  records,  but  down  in  the  post 
office  they  did  not  know  I  was  a  member  of  the  church. 
There  is  something  wrong  here.  We  have  got  to  go  to  church 
more,  and  do  more  when  we  are  there."  I  wonder  whether 
the  world  is  not  full  of  people  who  never  let  it  be  known  that 
they  are  members  of  the  church.  They  keep  a  tight  lid  down 
on  that  fact,  with  a  sealed  rim,  for  fear  it  would  break  out 
some  time  and  somebody  make  the  discovery.  What  does 
the  Bible  say  about  that?  "Let  your  light  shine."  You  must 
not  stick  it  under  a  bushel,  hide  it  away. 

Again,  don't  refuse  help  when  it  is  offered  to  you.  That 
is  a  species  of  self-pride.  You  get  the  idea  that  you  are 
pretty  strong,  you  are  pretty  able,  a  pretty  good  fellow,  you 
can  go  it  alone.  A  man  comes  along;  he  offers  you  a  kind- 
ness. No,  you  don't  need  it;  you  are  going  to  get  along;  you 
don't  want  any  help.  Strike  that  kind  of  a  keynote  of  abso- 
lute independence,  and  you  soon  run  against  a  snag.  You 
must  learn  early  in  life  that  we  are  all  dependent;  none  of 
us  are  independent.  To  know  how  to  receive  help  is  as  im- 
portant as  to  know  how  to  give  help.  Not  to  receive  help  i8 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  81 

to  be  tremendously  narrow  and  handicapped  in  the  work  of 
life.  Every  man  around  you  can  help  you  if  you  are  willing 
to  be  helped.  Every  person  in  the  community  can  strengthen 
you  if  you  feel  the  need  of  help.  Think  of  the  candor  of  this 
woman.  Her  consciousness  of  need,  her  absolute  surrender 
to  every  feeling  of  reserve,  led  her  to  speak  right  out  from 
the  heart  the  feeling  that  prompted  her.  "Then  she  fell  on 
her  face,  and  bowed  herself  to  the  ground,  and  said  unto 
him,  Why  have  I  found  grace  in  thine  eyes,  that  thou 
shouldst  take  knowledge  of  me,  seeing  I  am  a  stranger?"  We 
are  not  always  as  direct  and  plain  and  specific  as  we  ought  to 
be.  Ruth  sets  a  good  example  here  for  us  all  to  tell  the 
truth  in  plain  language,  right  to  the  point;  to  be  just  as  spe- 
cific as  we  can  be  in  everything  we  do — in  preaching,  teach- 
ing, talking,  in  everything.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  time 
wasted  in  this  world  in  glittering  generalities.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  candor  of  Ruth,  indicative  as  it  is  of  a  pure 
heart,  is  a  type  of  the  kind  of  thing  we  ought  to  be  in  the 
Christian  life  in  the  church.  We  ought  to  be  honest,  open, 
frank  and  candid  with  everybody.  Say  just  what  you  ought 
to  say,  and  do  what  you  say. 

What  was  Ruth  grateful  for?  I  suppose  there  are  some  of 
you  around  here  who  would  say,  "If  I  could  gain  all  that 
Ruth  did,  I  would  be  grateful  too;  but  I  don't  get  much." 
Ruth,  out  there  in  the  fields  of  Boaz,  obtained  a  beggar's 
portion,  no  more.  She  got  just  what  a  man  did  here  the 
other  day.  He  came  and  knocked  at  the  door  and  asked  for 
something  to  eat,  and  my  neighbor's  wife  gave  him  some- 
thing to  eat.  He  got  just  what  a  beggar  gets.  That  is  all 
Ruth  got.  She  went  out  there  to  get  a  beggar's  portion;  she 
received  only  that,  and  was  grateful  for  it.  There  is  not  one 
of  you  that  has  not  that  much,  that  has  not  more  than  Ruth 
received.  There  is  not  one  of  you  that  has  been  as  grateful. 
In  comparison  with  her  you  are  not  to  be  considered.  Your 
ingratitude,  your  lack  of  appreciation  has  made  it  impossible 
.  for  God  to  do  with  you  and  for  you  what  he  did  with  Ruth 


82  LECTURES  ON  THE 

and  for  Ruth.  You  put  yourself  out  of  the  line,  and  God 
cannot  use  you  until  you  get  your  heart  softened  and  your 
whole  spirit  aroused  and  your  whole  will  bent  on  doing 
something  that  is  right,  doing  all  of  it  that  you  can.  In  the 
course  of  this  conversation,  if  you  will  notice  as  the  story 
goes  on,  Boaz  answers  Ruth  and  approves  her  course.  You  can- 
not keep  a  fact  very  well  hid.  Ruth  could  slip  out  there  in  the 
morning  into  the  wheat  field  and  glean,  and  slip  back  into  the 
house  at  night  undiscovered.  She  could  keep  quiet  and  stay 
in  during  the  evening.  But  in  spite  of  all  that,  the  kind  of  a 
life  she  was  living  out  there  in  Bethlehem,  the  kind  of  devo- 
tion that  she  was  showing  to  her  old  mother-in-law,  the  kind 
of  absolute  trust  in  the  new  God  she  had  come  to  worship, 
had  gone  up  as  a  memorial,  not  only  to  heaven,  but  out  as  a 
memorial  among  men.  Boaz  knew  of  it:  "And  Boaz  answered 
and  said  unto  her,  It  hath  fully  been  shewed  me,  all  that 
thou  hast  done  unto  thy  mother  in  law  since  the  death  of 
thine  husband;  and  how  thou  hast  left  thy  father  and  thy 
mother,  and  the  land  of  thy  nativity,  and  art  come  unto  a 
people  which  thou  knewest  not  heretofore."  You  can't  hide 
these  things.  Here  is  the  trouble:  so  many  of  us  are  so 
anxious  to  have  known  the  good  we  are  doing  that  we  don't 
get  enough  done  to  amount  to  anything.  You  need  not 
mind  putting  it  in  the  newspaper  or  telling  it  abroad  that 
you  gave  a  turkey  to  the  orphans'  home  or  a  bushel  of  coal  to 
a  sick  neighbor.  Just  do  these  things,  and  don't  boast  of  it. 
After  a  while  you  will  be  doing  enough  of  them  that  the 
newspapers  and  the  world  and  heaven  shall  ring  with  the 
knowledge  of  it.  You  can't  keep  it  back.  But  if  you  try  to 
get  it  noised  abroad  and  have  it  boasted  about,  you  will 
waste  all  your  time  on  that — time  that  ought  to  have  been 
given  to  the  doing  of  good  things.  And  you  will  appear  in 
the  light  of  the  world  as  the  hypocrite  that  you  are.  Ruth 
never  bothered  interviewers,  never  tried  to  make  herself  pop- 
ular. She  simply  attended  to  business.  There  is  nothing 
great  in  what  she  did.  She  had  the  most  subordinate  place 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  83 

that  I  can  conceive  in  the  whole  Jewish  order  of  the  family, 
the  support  of  an  old  mother-in-law  in  poverty.  But  she  did 
that  so  well  that  the  fame  of  it  went  out  all  over  the  country. 
Some  of  you  want  a  reputation  after  a  while.  You  want 
to  be  known  as  preachers,  as  teachers,  as  mathematicians; 
you  want  to  be  known  as  this  and  that.  If  you  want  to  have 
such  a  reputation,  the  best  procedure  in  the  world  is  to  do 
the  thing  you  want  to  be  with  all  your  might.  If  you  want 
to  be  a  mathematician,  figure,  cipher  away,  day  and  night. 
And  when  you  become  a  good  mathematician  the  world  will 
learn  of  it.  If  you  want  to  be  a  good  teacher,  study  the 
laws  of  teaching,  the  laws  that  govern  the  growth  of  the 
child's  mind  and  spirit;  and  as  you  come  to  know  these 
things,  and  become  expert  in  your  knowledge,  you  can  teach; 
and  the  world  will  find  it  out.  Some  of  you  want  to  be  good 
musicians  and  play  on  the  piano.  That  is  a  laudable  ambi- 
tion. I  wish  you  all  could  play.  But  you  fritter  and  waste 
more  time  away  in  talking  about  what  you  do  than  it  would 
require  to  do  the  thing.  The  tendency  of  human  life  is  to 
dissipate  energy.  You  hang  around  for  sympathy,  saying, 
"How  I  would  like  to  do  this!"  You  need  somebody  to  say, 
4( Why  don't  you  do  it?"  You  want  comfort  and  support. 
Your  duty  is  to  do  the  thing  unaided  and  with  all  your 
might.  Hoe  your  own  row  in  the  potato  patch.  Do  your 
own  work,  and  do  it  with  such  simple  devotion  to  the  work 
itself  that  God  will  see  your  devotion  in  that  and  make  it  a 
memorial  to  you  and  glorify  your  name  later  on.  A  noble 
life  is  always  found  out.  If  you  do  good  for  no  reward,  you 
get  a  reward;  if  you  do  good  for  a  reward,  you  seldom  get  it, 
and  never  deserve  it.  "When  you  trust  in  God  as  Euth  did, 
there  will  be  great  compensation.  Your  rewards  will  always 
be  as  great,  and  greater,  than  you  can  conceive  them  to  be. 
I  like,  above  all  things  in  this  part  of  the  narrative,  "The 
Lord  recompense  thy  work,  and  a  full  reward  be  given  thee 
of  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  under  whose  wings  thou  art  come 
to  trust." 


84  LECTURES  ON  THE 

"Under  whose  wings  thou  art  come  to  trust."  I  would  like 
if  every  member  of  this  class  could  take  that  closing  part  of 
the  prayer  of  Boaz,  the  benediction  that  he  pronounces  upon 
the  life  of  this  simple  maiden,  and  think  it  out  for  himself. 
"Under  whose  wings  thou  art  come  to  trust!"  He  simply 
asks  for  the  blessing  of  God  upon  her,  a  blessing  from  the 
power  in  whom  she  had  come  to  trust.  That  means  so  much 
when  you  consider  its  full  significance.  Here  in  God  she 
had  a  place  of  refuge.  She  had  a  place  of  shelter  under  his 
wings.  There  was  shelter  for  her  soul.  There  was  refuge 
for  her  weary  spirit.  Here  was  the  tender,  mature  and  cul- 
tured sympathy  of  a  father's  soul  for  this  poor  orphan  girl. 
What  could  be  more  beautiful  than  the  figure  of  the 
Almighty's  sheltering  wing  over  this  orphan  beggar!  She 
had  no  home  of  her  own;  she  had  no  one  to  care  for  her; 
she  was  absolutely  alone  and  lonely.  In  her  loneliness  and 
aloneness  she  comes  to  find  shelter  and  refuge  under  the 
wings  of  Almighty  God.  She  is  not  disappointed  any  more 
than  you  will  be  disappointed  if  you  come  to  trust  in  the 
same  protection.  Sheltered  under  His  wings,  protected  by 
His  love,  sheltered  from  everything  by  the  interposition  of 
His  divine  power!  God  does  protect  us.  Blessed  assurance! 
"Under  whose  wings  thou  art  come  to  trust."  Let  us  learn 
how  we  come  to  trust  under  his  wings.  We  might  be  under 
God's  wings,  restless  as  a  chicken  is  restless  under  the 
mother's  wing.  We  might  be  under  His  wing,  fearful, 
fretful,  murmuring,  unsatisfied,  discontented,  chafing  and 
fussing.  We  might  not  be  at  ease,  not  at  rest.  There 
are  a  great  many  people  to-day  who  are  in  exactly  that  con- 
dition. Let  us  come  to  trust  under  his  wings.  And  when  we 
come  to  the  point  of  trust,  past  all  other  states  of  mind, 
states  of  discontent  and  restlessness  and  fearfulness  and  mur- 
muring, when  we  have  come  to  the  point  that  we  can  nestle 
down  under  the  wing  of  God  and  trust,  then  we  shall  be 
under  His  wing  resting;  we  shall  be  under  it  fearless;  we 
shall  be  under  it  contented.  When  you  are  under  God's  wing 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  85 

without  fear,  without  any  desire  to  escape  from  there,  filled 
with  the  desire  to  stay  there,  when  you  are  under  God's  pro- 
tection and  want  to  stay  there,  then  your  life  is  capable  of 
infinite  power  and  infinite  good. 

In  this  connection  think  of  old  Job,  a  character  that  I  am 
very  fond  of.  You  remember  that  when  he  crept  under 
God's  wing  and  felt  strong  there,  and  above  all  felt  at  home 
under  God's  wing,  when  the  storm  came  and  drove  his  cattle 
asunder  and  killed  them,  and  the  winds  came  and  blew  the 
house  down  over  the  heads  of  his  children  and  his  sons  were 
killed,  what  did  he  do?  He  could  go  on  praising  God.  With- 
out His  protection  he  would  have  gone  wild.  But  he  sat 
under  God's  wing  through  all  trials,  saying,  "The  Lord  giv- 
eth  and  the  Lord  taketh  away,  blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
Lord/'  When  you  can  get  your  life  keyed  up  to  the  point 
where  you  can  feel  that  under  God's  protection  every  loss 
that  comes  to  you  is  a  thing  for  which  you  can  bless  God; 
when  you  can  surrender  everything  that  is  precious  to  you  in 
hie  and  still  hold  on  to  God;  then  your  soul  is  anchored  to 
the  right  spot.  When  the  loss  of  a  house,  or  the  loss  of  a 
cow,  or  a  farm,  or  anything,  breaks  you  away  from  your 
moorings  to  God,  you  simply  love  those  things  more  than 
you  love  God.  That  was  not  the  way  with  old  Job.  His 
religion  meant  more  to  him  than  his  children,  so  he  could 
lose  his  children  and  stick  to  his  religion.  His  religion 
meant  more  to  him  than  his  property.  He  could  see  that 
go,  and  sit  down  in  beggary  and  rags  and  be  content,  because 
his  religion  was  above  his  herds  and  flocks,  and  above  the 
children  of  his  youth.  I  fear  very  much  that  some  of  you 
are  not  very  well  anchored.  There  are  certain  things  you 
could  lose,  of  course.  You  could  lose  your  pocketbook  and 
not  fret  much;  you  could  still  go  to  prayer-meeting  and 
pray.  And  yet  I  don't  know  about  that.  It  might  depend 
upon  how  much  money  you  had  in  it!  How  much  of  your 
money  could  you  lose  and  still  be  undisturbed  in  your 
religious  devotion?  I  was  talking  the  other  day  to  a  good 


86  LECTURES  ON  THE 

friend  of  mine,  who  is  a  prominent  man  in  the  eastern  part 
of  the  state  in  school  affairs.    He  lost  his  property  about  two 
years  ago.    He  was  sold  out  by  the  sheriff.    He  said  to  me: 
"I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  have  been  a  member  of  the  church 
for  twenty-five  years;  but  when  I  saw  my  goods  go,  I  don't 
want  to  say  what  I  did,  but  you  know  sometimes  a  body 
begins  to  doubt  the  providence  of  God."    "Yes,"  I  said,  "I 
know  how  that  is."   He  said:  "I  was  just  in  that  fix;  I  felt 
as  if  things  were  not  right,  after  all.     Of  course  I  knew  it 
was  not  right  to  do  that,  but  I  was  doing  it  all  the  same." 
There  he  was,  just  tottering,  his  goods  and  his  God  about 
equally  balanced,  his  love  for  each  about  equally   strong. 
When  one  went,  he  was  not  sure  that  he  could  hold  the 
other.    Here  is  the  test  for  all  of  us.    If  we  come  to  trust  in 
God  more  than  we  come  to  trust  in  other  things,  then  we 
can  lose  the  other  things  and  still  hold  on  to  God,  "under 
whose  wings  we  have  come  to  trust."   Let  us  come  to  trust. 
Don't  get  half-way  to  trust.    Don't  get  a  half-trust  in  your 
life,  a  half -faith,  a  half -expectation,  a  half -certainty.     Come 
right  up  to  the  full  measure  of  all  the  trust  will  give  to  you. 
"What  are  you  doing  to  get  that?    You  must  surrender  your 
whole  self,  give  up  everything  —  everything  that  you  are, 
everything  that  you  think  you  are,  everything  that  you  want 
to  be.    You  can't  trust  under  God's  wings  and  be  sheltered 
there  unless  you  are  full  of  God — entirely  unselfish  in  your 
outlook  and  purposes.     I  remember  Christ's  promise;  I  will 
paraphrase  it  for  you:  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."     Come  unto  me 
all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  put  you 
under  this  wing  of  protection,  I  will  take  your  burdens  from 
you,  I  will  take  your  heavy  sins  from  you,  I  will  give  you 
what  you  need,  I  will  give  you  rest.    But  to  do  so,  you  must 
come  unto  me,  all  the  way  unto  me,  not  half-way.     Let  us 
come  to  trust  under  His  wings. 

Ruth  expresses  her  gratitude  for  this  ministry  of  love  that 
was  showered  upon  her,  in  the  thirteenth  verse.    I  want  to 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  87 

impress  upon  all  of  you  the  value  of  a  word  of  gratitude 
timely  uttered,  the  value  of  a  grateful  word.  Sometimes  you 
feel  as  if  you  ought  to  say  something  to  somebody  who  had 
done  some  kindness  to  you — as  if  you  ought  to  say  to  the 
pastor:  "That  was  a  good  sermon;  it  did  me  good;  I  thank 
you  for  it."  "That  was  a  good  meeting  we  had  together." 
But  you  don't  say  it;  you  walk  out  with  the  mean,  miserly 
feeling  that  you  have  not  done  your  duty.  I  don't  want 
anybody  to  come  to  me  and  lie  to  me,  and  say,  "You  did 
well,"  when  I  did  not.  I  don't  care  for  that;  but  in  the  touch 
of  life,  when  you  are  helped  you  ought  to  say  "Thank  you." 
There  ought  to  be  that  feeling  of  confidence  and  mutual 
respect  for  one  another  that  prompts  one  to  say,  with  full 
heart,  "Thank  you."  And  when  you  learn  to  be  a  grateful 
church  and  a  grateful  people,  you  will  be  more  like  Christ. 
In  one  of  Mr.  Moody's  great  meetings  in  Sheffield,  England, 
a  woman  came  into  his  church  an  hour  before  the  service 
with  a  baby  in  her  arms.  The  very  fact  that  she  came  early 
showed  her  interest.  She  wanted  to  get  a  good  seat.  She  eat 
down  about  the  middle  of  the  church.  Mr.  Moody  came  in 
and  noticed  this  woman.  The  baby  was  crying,  as  babies 
will  in  church.  Just  wait  until  you  are  a  preacher.  I  would 
like  you  to  be  a  preacher  for  five  minutes  when  a  baby  is 
yelling  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  that  you  might  learn  how 
trying  it  is  to  preach  under  such  circumstances.  Here  was 
Mr.  Moody  before  this  great  congregation.  He  felt  the  bur- 
den of  souls  and  the  responsibility  of  the  meeting  upon  him. 
And  between  him  and  that  congregation  of  dying  sinners  was 
this  crying  baby.  Some  of  the  people  looked  at  the  woman. 
She  was  trying  to  quiet  the  baby,  of  course;  but  the  more 
she  tried  to  quiet  it,  the  more  it  cried.  Some  of  the  people 
looked  at  her  as  if  to  say:  "Why  don't  you  take  it  away?  Get 
out  of  this,"  as  I  have  often  seen  people  look  at  a  woman 
with  a  crying  baby.  If  I  were  in  church  with  a  child,  and 
were  to  be  so  looked  at,  I  would  take  it  out,  and  unless  I 
were  very  strongly  centred  in  my  religious  convictions,  I 


88  LECTURES  ON  THE 

would  never  go  back  to  that  church  again.  Finally  the 
woman  started  to  go  out,  but  Mr.  Moody  said:  "Will  some- 
body kindly  tell  that  woman  to  come  back  and  take  her 
place  and  not  worry  if  the  baby  does  cry?  My  voice  is  strong, 
and  by  the  grace  of  God  I  can  preach  as  loud  as  that  baby 
can  cry."  The  mother  was  comforted;  she  came  back,  and 
the  baby  went  to  sleep.  And  the  message  of  God  was 
preached  from  that  pulpit  with  power.  That  woman's  heart 
was  touched,  and  when  Mr.  Moody  said,  "All  that  want  the 
prayers  of  God's  people,  please  stand  up,"  she  stood  up. 
When  he  said,  "Those  that  desire  to  learn  more  about  the 
way  of  salvation  will  please  tarry  after  the  meeting  is  over 
and  meet  me  in  the  little  back  room  yonder,"  the  woman  got 
up  and  started  for  the  little  room.  And  a  large  man  back 
in  the  congregation,  who  had  not  had  a  baby  in  his  arms  for 
fifty  years,  perhaps,  came  up  and  said  to  this  woman,  "Let 
me  hold  your  baby  while  you  go  into  the  room  yonder."  He 
was  a  royal  knight!  He  took  that  strange  woman's  baby  in 
his  arms  and  toted  it  up  and  down  the  aisles  of  the  church, 
and  she  went  into  that  little  side  room  and  wrestled  with 
God  until  she  received  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  You  are 
not  grateful  enough.  You  are  not  on  the  outlook  for  a 
chance  to  say  a  kind  word  when  a  kind  word  ought  to  be 
said.  We  turn  our  backs  to  one  another  and  walk  on  the 
other  side,  and  the  world  seems  cold  and  hard  and  selfish  and 
unyielding.  Perhaps  the  reason  for  it  is,  we  have  been  cold 
and  selfish  and  unyielding  ourselves  in  our  contact  with 
others. 

You  generally  find  the  world  just.  It  will  usually  give 
back  to  you  about  what  you  give  to  it.  Here  was  a  woman 
who  gave  expression  to  her  gratitude.  She  realized  that  Boaz 
had  been  good  to  her,  and  she  did  not  hesitate  to  express  her 
thanks;  though  some  girls  would  have  said  it  was  not  modest 
of  her  to  say,  "Let  me  find  favour  in  thy  sight,  my  lord." 
Well,  it  was  an  expression  of  her  honest  heart,  sweeping 
outward  toward  her  benefactor.  Boaz  comes  and  does  the 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  89 

thing  this  woman  needs;  he  helps  her;  so  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  comes  into  your  life  and  mine  to  help  it.  What  we 
need  is  to  be  more  grateful,  and  to  express  more  freely  our 
gratitude.  Ruth's  heart  opened  like  a  flower  that  had  been 
kept  in  the  shade,  and  now  for  the  first  time  in  years  had 
received  the  warm  light  of  the  sun  of  helpfulness.  Her  life 
opened  to  take  on  new  hopes  as  it  unfolded  under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  unexpected  kindness.  She  exalted  him  just  as 
we  exalt  our  great  benefactors.  You  know  how  we  exalt 
Columbus.  Why  do  we  do  that?  How  did  he  get  into  his- 
tory? Why  do  we  speak  about  him  and  have  his  anniversa- 
ries? He  was  a  benefactor.  He  did  something  that  helped 
you,  and  now  you  are  trying  to  pay  back  your  gratitude. 
We  build  our  monuments  to  George  Washington.  What  is 
it  for?  He  was  our  benefactor.  That  is,  he  did  in  advance 
for  us  what  we  now  endeavor  in  return  to  pay  to  him  by 
building  monuments  and  holding  anniversary  days  and  recit- 
ing his  name  in  schools.  That  is  the  spirit  of  gratitude  in  a 
practical  form.  Washington  shall  live  as  long  as  our  nation 
lives,  in  memory  of  the  benefits  he  bestowed  upon  our  nation. 
It  is  so  with  any  great  man.  Napoleon,  as  much  as  he  was 
maligned  and  abused,  as  much  as  he  oppressed  others,  was 
sincerely  loved  by  his  soldiers.  The  spirit  of  devotion  that 
characterized  the  grenadiers  that  marched  under  Napoleon 
typifies  in  some  measure  the  devotion  that  ought  to  be  felt 
in  our  following  of  Christ.  There  was  a  little  German  poem 
recited  once  in  this  church.  It  told  the  story  of  Napoleon's 
army  retreating  from  Moscow.  Two  grenadiers  were  cap- 
tured and  thrown  into  prison.  After  being  imprisoned  for 
months  in  Russia,  they  found  their  way  out  of  jail  and 
across  the  border  into  Germany.  When  they  got  as  far  as 
Germany  on  their  way  home  to  join  the  forces  of  the  Em- 
peror, they  were  told  that  Napoleon  had  been  arrested  and 
taken  in  exile  to  the  little  island  of  Elba,  and  was  there  a 
prisoner  for  life;  that  he  had  been  banished  from  the  French 
nation.  Then  these  soldiers  who  had  fought  with  him  and 


90  LECTURES  ON  THE 

had  fought  for  him  began  to  discuss  their  future.  And  one 
said  to  the  other:  "Why  should  I  go  back  to  France,  to  flow- 
ery, sunny  France,  when  the  Emperor  is  gone — the  Em- 
peror, the  Emperor!  You  go  back;  you  have  wife  and  chil- 
dren three;  go,  minister  to  them.  I  shall  lie  down  here  on 
the  Rhine  and  die  for  my  Emperor — the  Emperor."  The 
other  replied:  "What  care  I  for  wife,  what  care  I  for  chil- 
dren; take  my  life  here  on  the  Rhine,  and  bury  me  with  my 
sword  in  my  hand,  the  badge  of  the  Cross  of  Honor  on  my 
breast,  and  when  my  Emperor  rides  over  my  grave,  I  shall 
rise  from  this  tomb  with  my  sword  in  my  hand  to  fight  for 
my  Emperor — the  Emperor!"  This  is  the  devotion  of  an 
absolute  follower  to  a  leader  whom  he  loves.  It  mirrors,  it 
seems  to  me,  something  of  the  devotion  that  men  and  women 
need  more  and  more  for  the  meek  and  lowly  King  and 
Leader  of  us  all,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

You  are  not  willing  to  lie  down  with  your  sword  in  your 
hand;  you  are  not  willing  to  stand  girded  for  the  fray;  you 
are  not  willing  to  die  for  your  King.  The  test  of  real  dis- 
cipleship  is  the  test  that  Christ  himself  put  upon  us  when 
he  gave  his  life  for  us.  Over  in  Denmark  some  years  ago 
they  were  building  a  little  church,  and  about  forty  feet  from 
the  ground  a  workman  slipped  and  fell  to  the  pavement 
below.  It  looked  like  instant  death.  But  a  flock  of  sheep 
were  going  past  at  the  time.  The  workman  fell  on  the  flock 
of  sheep  and  crushed  a  little  lamb  to  death,  but  saved  his 
own  life.  Up  there  from  where  he  fell  they  carved  on  the 
side  of  that  church  a  picture  of  the  little  lamb  that  had 
given  its  life  for  him,  as  a  memorial  of  the  sacrifice.  The 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  crushed  by  the  weight  of  your  sins, 
crushed  down  to  death.  And  you  have  not  exalted  him  as 
they  exalted  this  little  lamb  of  Denmark  because  it  saved 
the  life  of  a  workman.  Let  us  hold  him  up  as  a  leader,  as 
an  exalted  King.  Let  us  worship  him  and  follow  him  with  a 
feeling  of  gratitude  and  devotion,  with  an  honest  heart 
genuinely  devoted  to  Christ. 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  91 


LECTUKE  VIII. 

You  will  find  recorded  in  the  fourteenth  verse:  "And  Boaz 
said  unto  her,  At  meal  time  come  thou  hither,  and  eat  of  the 
bread,  and  dip  thy  morsel  in  the  vinegar.  And  she  sat  beside 
the  reapers:  and  he  reached  her  parched  corn,  and  she  did 
eat,  and  was  sufficed,  and  left."  Let  us  think  a  little  about 
the  mid-day  meal  down  there  in  the  harvest  field.  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  these  men  who  worked  honestly 
through  the  morning  hours  had  their  meals  served  to  them 
at  the  place  where  they  were.  The  question  of  food  was  sub- 
ordinate to  the  question  of  industry.  The  place  of  labor  was 
the  place  of  nourishment.  Everything  else  had  to  be  tribu- 
tary to  the  one  thing,  the  place  of  labor.  They  did  not 
abandon  the  field  and  go  off  to  the  town  and  waste  an 
immense  amount  of  the  day's  labor  and  of  their  own  energy 
in  gaining  sustenance  at  noon-time.  They  sat  down  and 
ate,  and  were  sufficed,  and  left — returned  again  to  the  field 
to  work.  If  we  take  this  harvest  field  as  the  field  of  God, 
for  such  it  was  to  Ruth;  and  if  we  take  Ruth  as  a  type  of  all 
of  us,  for  such  she  was;  we  have  a  lesson  before  us.  There 
are  times  in  the  life  of  each  of  us  when  mea!4ime  comes, 
when  the  time  of  recuperation  comes,  the  time  of  restora- 
tion, the  time  for  strengthening  for  additional  labors.  These 
men  could  not  work  on  throughout  the  day.  The  limit  of 
endurance  had  been  reached.  Nourishment  and  replenish- 
ing of  their  energies  was  necessary.  The  preacher  of  the 
word  of  God  will  run  out  in  the  course  of  time  if  he  does  not 
keep  attending  to  the  meal-times  of  his  life.  Some  of  you 
have  not  enough  in  you  to  feed  anybody;  you  don't  "meal- 
time" often  enough.  You  miss  opportunities  in  the  public 
sanctuary  to  feed  yourself  that  you  may  feed  others.  You 
miss  opportunities  in  the  prayer-meeting,  in  the  Sabbath- 


92  LECTURES  ON  THE 

school,  for  that  sort  of  thing.  You  miss  the  opportunity  that 
is  in  the  Bible  Session  of  the  college  for  that  sort  of  thing. 
These  are  the  meal-times  of  the  Christian.  These  are  the 
times  that  you  sit  down  to  strengthen  yourself  for  addi- 
tional toil  and  work  in  God's  field.  To  miss  these  is  to  go 
out  weak  for  all  the  work  of  your  lives.  No  man,  who  has 
sincerely  resolved  to  work  for  Jesus  Christ,  can  afford  to 
miss  the  means  of  strengthening  himself  for  that  work.  He 
can't  afford  to  turn  his  back  upon  any  time  when  he  can 
be  strengthened  for  that  work.  The  church  service,  the 
prayer-meeting  service,  the  Bible  Session,  these  are  the 
means  that  God  has  provided  for  filling  your  soul  with  the 
food  of  heaven,  in  the  strength  of  which  you  are  to  with- 
stand temptation  and  sin,  and  to  work  for  God  for  many 
days.  Without  that  strength  you  will  break  down  under 
temptation  and  be  ineffective  in  the  field.  Some  people  say, 
"I  cannot  afford  to  go  up  to  the  Bible  term  for  three  weeks; 
my  potatoes  will  freeze  in  the  cellar,  my  horse  will  not  be 
fed  as  well  by  the  man  who  will  attend  to  him  as  I  would 
feed  him  myself."  But  you  forget.  If  you  don't  come,  you 
are  going  to  starve  your  soul,  and  are  not  going  to  feed  prop- 
erly your  congregation.  Let  your  potatoes  freeze.  Let  your 
horse  be  neglected  for  a  time.  Attend  to  the  souls  of  God's 
children.  We  don't  understand  these  things  right  some- 
times. These  are  our  meal-times.  To  miss  these  is  to  im- 
poverish our  souls.  I  do  wonder  how  lean  some  of  us  are,  how 
flabby  we  are,  how  weak  we  are.  ISTo  wonder  the  world  and 
God  himself  get  discouraged  at  the  work  we  do.  We  are  so 
weak  we  cannot  strike  a  solid  blow  for  Jesus  Christ.  We 
have  not  prayed  enough,  we  have  not  pondered  enough,  we 
have  not  strength  enough  to  do  the  work.  It  is  one  of  my 
notions  that  a  man  had  better  sit  for  forty  years  and  think 
and  prepare  just  to  strike  one  good  square  blow  for  Christ, 
than  to  scatter  his  energies  over  forty  years  and  do  little  or 
nothing  for  Him. 

I  believe  in  thorough  preparation,  I  believe  in  absolute 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  93 

skill.  I  believe  in  the  perfecting  of  yourself  for  the  work  of 
Christ.  I  cannot  conceive  of  anything  in  this  world  that 
needs  the  best  energies  of  a  man  as  much  as  the  work  of 
Christ  needs  it.  Let  us  try  to  brijag  men  and  women  as  near 
to  that  standard  as  we  can.  There  is  a  man  in  your  congre- 
gation you  think  can  preach.  He  shows  evidences  of  spir- 
itual growth.  Send  him  to  school  where  he  can  get  the  best 
spiritual  strength  and  food,  so  that  he  can  come  back  to  you 
in  ten  years  and  strike  a  blow  in  that  community  for  Christ 
that  will  send  sin  reeling  to  its  death  and  sinners  rejoicing 
to  the  cross.  You  will  have  sacrificed  your  time  and  money 
to  send  him  to  school.  But  the  joy  of  standing  where  he 
knocks  sin  dead,  and  rejoicing  with  him  over  the  conquest, 
is  ample  compensation.  You  do  not  loan  a  dollar  to  a  young 
man  to  go  to  school  for  fear  you  will  not  get  the  dollar  back. 
To  lend  a  dollar  to  a  young  man  to  go  to  a  Christian  school 
is  redeeming  the  world  for  Christ.  We  need  young  men  in 
the  ministry  who  can  preach  with  spirit,  with  power.  We 
need  them  right  here  in  Huntingdon,  out  at  New  Enterprise, 
down  in  Virginia,  over  in  New  York,  we  need  them  over  the 
entire  Brotherhood  —  young  men  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  the  holy  spirit  of  God,  and  who  are  educated  until 
they  can  preach  with  power.  We  need  them.  And  mark 
my  words,  unless  we  rear  them  in  our  colleges,  we  won't  have 
them.  The  school  of  the  church  is  the  nursery  in  which  this 
is  done.  It  is  the  meal-place  for  the  strengthening  of  men 
for  the  work  of  God.  To  keep  them  out  is* to  impov- 
erish God's  field  and  let  it  go  unworked,  unredeemed.  One 
cannot  help  holding  up  his  hands  and  praying  to  Heaven, 
saying,  "How  long,  0  Lord,  how  long!"  There  is  another 
meal-time  for  you  and  for  me — the  sacred  ordinances  of  the 
church  of  Jesus  Christ.  These  are  the  feasting-times  of  the 
Christian  man  and  the  Christian  woman.  What  is  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  ceremonies  in  the  church,  of  the  ceremonies 
that  are  precious  to  life,  excepting  that  they  are  the  times 
when  the  soul  is  fattened  before  God?  Why  do  we  com- 


94  LECTURES  ON  THE 

memorate  the  shed  blood  and  broken  body  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  communion  service?  Why  do  we  commemorate 
his  humility  in  the  ordinance  of  feet-washing?  Why  do  we 
have  the  salutation  of  the  holy  kiss?  Why  do  we  have  the 
things  that  we  have  in  the  church  of  God?  They  are  the 
feasts  of  the  soul.  To  miss  these  is  to  impoverish  the  soul. 
To  miss  the  communion  service,  to  be  out  of  the  church 
when  the  church  feasts  are  held,  is  to  miss  a  season  of 
strength  for  the  soul.  You  can't  afford  to  go  hungry,  to  go 
lean,  to  go  emaciated,  to  go  impoverished,  to  go  weakened, 
staggering  down  through  God's  work,  when  you  could  walk 
strong  and  strengthened  by  attending  upon  his  ordinances 
and  participating  in  them. 

I  suppose  there  were  a  dozen  or  more  out  there  in  the 
field,  quite  a  number  of  workers.  You  know  he  gave  his 
orders  to  the  reapers  to  drop  handfuls  and  help  Ruth  all  they 
could.  Who  got  the  most  strength  from  that  meal  there  at 
noon-time  in  the  field  of  Boaz?  I  don't  mean  who  ate  the 
most  food;  that  is  no  measure  of  getting  the  most  out  of  it. 
I  mean  to  whom  did  that  noon-day  meal  mean  the  most?  It 
meant  the  most  to  the  one  that  had  worked  the  hardest.  If 
Ruth  had  cuddled  up  under  a  tree  out  there  in  Boaz'  field, 
and  slept  until  dinner-time,  and  when  she  heard  the  dinner- 
bell  ring  had  gone  down,  she  would  have  been  ashamed  of 
herself.  She  would  have  had  no  appetite.  She  would  not 
have  enjoyed  her  meal.  If  you  want  to  enjoy  the  ordinances 
of  God,  work  for  Him.  Get  hungry,  then  you  will  enjoy  the 
meal.  If  you  don't  work  for  Him,  you  will  never  get  hungry 
enough  to  know  how  to  enjoy  His  feasts.  Some  of  you  have 
not  a  very  vivid  religious  experience.  It  is  not  meaning 
much  to  you.  You  are  not  doing  enough  to  have  it  mean 
much  to  you.  Go  out  and  minister  to  the  poor.  Go  out  and 
make  sacrifices  for  His  cause.  Build  more  churches.  Help 
on  His  kingdom  in  more  energetic  ways.  Get  hungry  from 
hard  work,  and  the  Lord  God  will  feed  you  and  do  you  good. 
The  Prayer-Meeting,  the  Church  Service,  the  Bible  Class, 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  95 

the  Bible  Session,  the  Ordinances  in  the  Church  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ — the  Ceremony  of  Feet- Washing,  Holy  Bap- 
tism, the  Holy  Kiss,  the  Communion  Emblems — these  mean 
most  to  those  that  do  most.  You  can  measure  your  spiritual 
power  by  the  joy  that  these  things  bring  to  you.  If  a  man 
comes  to  church  and  sleeps  through  the  meal-time,  he  is  not 
hungry  from  toil  in  God's  harvest.  He  has  not  worked  hard 
enough  for  Christ  to  enjoy  religious  refreshing. 

Those  people  were  out  busily  engaged,  and  then  came  in 
to  the  meal.  They  had  a  right  to  their  meal.  Paul  declares, 
in  substance,  if  you  don't  work,  you  ought  not  to  eat.  If  you 
are  too  lazy  to  earn  bread,  you  have  no  right  to  eat  it.  I 
wonder  whether  that  might  apply  in  the  church  of  God? 
If  you  don't  work  hard  enough  to  enjoy  the  communion  of 
God,  what  right  have  you  to  partake  of  the  communion  of 
God?  If  you  don't  work  hard  enough  for  the  emblems  of  the 
church  to  mean  something  to  you,  what  right  have  you  to 
be  called  a  member  of  the  church?  If  you  won't  work,  why 
should  you  eat?  That  is  the  lesson  of  the  corn  field.  Ruth 
sat  with  the  workers,  and  enjoyed  the  meal  because  she  her- 
self was  a  worker.  There  was  a  bounteous  provision  made  for 
Ruth^-a  provision  above  her  expectations.  Her  very  dili- 
gence won  favors  to  herself.  Boaz  went  out  of  his  way  to 
do  more  than  the  law  exacted  of  him,  much  more  than  was 
the  usual  custom,  because  of  the  diligence  of  this  woman. 
She  won  these  favors  because  she  deserved  them.  He  gives 
to  her  bountifully.  I  cannot  help  admiring  the  beautiful 
spirit  of  the  man  that  sent  around  to  his  reapers  the  word, 
"Let  her  glean  even  among  the  sheaves,  and  reproach  her 
not."  Let  a  handful  slip  from  your  hands  for  her.  Don't 
do  it  so  that  she  will  see  you  do  it,  but  do  it  as  if  by  accident. 

Give  to  the  poor,  but  give  to  them  in  such  a  way  that  they 
do  not  realize  that  you  are  making  the  attempt  to  give  to 
them.  Give  to  them  bountifully.  Better  than  all  that,  give 
it  to  them  without  reproach.  Don't  put  upon  the  poor  with 
the  gift  you  give  to  them  the  stigma  of  poverty.  Don't  say, 


96  LECTURES  ON  THE 

"Here  is  a  dollar,  but  why  don't  you  work  so  you  won't  have 
to  beg?"  Don't  say  to  the  poverty-stricken  soul  when  it 
comes  to  (the  kingdom  and  asks  for  the  bread  of  heaven, 
"Here  is  the  bread,  but  why  did  you  not  join  the  church 
long  ago?"  Don't  heap  upon  the  hungry  soul  upbraidings 
for  what  might  have  been.  That  is  not  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
nor  of  Boaz,  nor  of  righteousness.  Here  is  the  hungry  soul; 
feed  it,  give  to  it  without  upbraiding.  How  does  Christ  do? 
"He  giveth  to  all  men  liberally" — and  then  scolds  them? 
Does  he?  Bead  on — "and  upbraideth  not."  Don't  forget 
the  word  "Not"  in  there.  It  is  put  at  the  end  for  the  sake 
of  emphasis.  Christ  knew  how  to  give.  May  He  help  us  to 
learn!  Some  men  never  see  an  emphatic  word  unless  it  is  at 
the  end.  "He  giveth  to  all  men  liberally  and  upbraideth 
not." 

I  would  like  to  see  a  Christian  church  that  would  know 
how  to  treat  penitents,  heaping  upon  them  the  riches  of 
heaven,  rejoicing  with  them  in  their  conversion,  sitting  with 
them  in  heavenly  places,  singing  the  songs  of  heaven  with 
them,  but  never  once  pointing  the  finger  of  reproach  toward 
them  and  saying,  or  even  thinking:  "You  are  not  as  good  as 
I  am.  You  have  not  been  in  the  church  as  long  as  I  have. 
You  are  not  as  spiritual  as  you  ought  to  be."  Grod  is  the 
Judge;  you  are  the  encourager.  Let  us  understand  that. 
Boaz  said  to  his  young  men:  "Drop  handfuls  and  help  her 
along.  Do  not  upbraid  her.  Do  not  reproach  her.  Do  not 
scold  her.  Fill  her  soul  with  encouragement,  that  she  may 
'toil  on,  for  to  toil  is  honorable."  In  everything  that  Boaz  did 
here  he  figured  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  When  a  man  comes 
into  the  church  of  Christ,  how  bountifully  he  is  treated; 
how  beyond  the  measure  of  his  own  expectation!  How  un- 
expectedly God  cares  for  him,  and  the  Spirit  helps  him! 
How  without  reproach  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  receives  us 
back!  I  wonder  whether  Jesus,  when  He  went  out  there  to 
the  mountain,  with  bleeding  feet,  in  the  darkness,  after  the 
lost  sheep,  and  found  it,  spanked  it  for  running  away.  Did 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  97 

He  take  it  home  and  pen  it  up  in  a  barren  field,  to  teach  it 
that  it  did  not  pay  to  run  away?  What  did  he  do  with  it? 
He  carried  it  home  on  his  shoulder,  comforted  it  in  his 
bosom.  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the  spirit  of 
encouragement  and  helpfulness,  not  of  rebuke  and  criticism. 
What  we  need  is  more  charity  for  the  sheep  that  are  out; 
more  love  to  drive  us  out  to  get  them;  more  consideration  for 
them  when  they  come  home.  How  long  did  Ruth  work? 
She  had  her  dinner;  she  had  gathered  a  goodly  amount.  Did 
she  then  go  home  and  rest?  Some  people  do.  When  they 
get  half  through  their  work,  they  say,  "Well,  I  guess  I  will 
rest  this  afternoon."  There  are  people  that  won't  work 
unless  they  must — people  in  the  church  that  won't  pray 
unless  they  must.  If  the  preacher  calls  upon  them,  they  will 
pray;  but  they  won't  do  it  if  they  can  avoid  it.  Nobody 
made  Ruth  work  until  evening.  But  she  goes  right  out  and 
continues  to  work.  "She  did  eat,  and  was  sufficed,  and  left/' 
"And  when  she  was  risen  up  to  glean" — not  to  go  home,  but 
to  glean,  to  go  on  with  her  work — she  set  a  noble  example 
for  all  of  us.  If  you  are  in  a  place  where  you  are  doing  well, 
stick  to  it;  glean  until  evening.  "So  she  gleaned  in  the 
field  until  even."  She  kept  right  at  it,  teaching  the  impor- 
tance of  getting  a  place  in  this  world  where  you  can  work, 
and  then  sticking  to  that,  persevering  in  the  thing  that  is 
right,  working  in  the  place  where  you  are  doing  well.  Unsta- 
bleness  in  business,  shifting  from  one  job  to  another, changing 
from  one  occupation  to  another,  is  not  to  be  commended  in 
anybody.  Unstableness  in  place,  not  willing  to  preach  here 
because  there  is  a  higher  salary  offered  there; — this  is  the 
wrong  way  of  making  up  one's  mind  to  work  for  Christ. 
If  you  are  in  a  place  where  you  feel  you  are  doing  well,  if 
you  are  bringing  souls  to  Christ,  stick  to  it  until  evening! 
If  you  are  not  doing  anything  in  the  field,  if  your  ministry  is 
not  blessed,  if  you  are  not  gathering  any  sheaves  for  Christ 
in  the  place  where  you  are,  don't  you  think  you  had  better 
•change  your  field?  I  don't  believe  in  changing;  I  believe  in 


98  LECTURES  ON  THE 

a  permanent  ministry.  Yet  there  are  times,  it  seems  to  me, 
when,  if  a  man's  usefulness  is  proved  to  be  circumscribed  in 
one  place,  he  had  better  go  to  another  place.  I  may  fail  in 
Huntingdon  and  succeed  in  Everett.  I  may  not  be  adapted 
to  do  good  in  one  place,  yet  be  well  fitted  for  success  in 
another.  I  have  not  a  universal  power  to  adapt  myself  to 
success  in  all  places.  I  shall  try  to  find  a  place  where  I  can 
work.  It  is  a  man's  conscientious  duty  to  study  himself  until 
he  knows  his  limits;  to  find  a  place  where  he  is  likely  to 
succeed. 

How  many  people  in  the  church  are  unstable!  They  don't 
stick  to  it  until  evening.  They  are  all  the  time  wanting  some- 
thing new.  They  don't  like  the  order  of  the  services.  Why 
not  have  it  some  other  way?  I  don't  know  what  they  would 
have  if  they  had  it  their  way.  The  spirit  of  discontent 
with  the  order  of  things  is  abroad  in  the  church.  They 
would  like  to  have  a  change.  And  then,  there  is  the 
preacher;  he  stands  the  same  all  the  time;  why  don't  he 
change  around?  He  has  a  habit  of  putting  his  hand  up  to 
his  forehead;  why  don't  he  put  it  to  the  back  of  his  head,  to 
rest  himself?  He  has  preached  so  many  times;  why  don't  he 
go  away  and  let  us  get  something  new?  I  have  heard  that; 
haven't  you?  The  preacher  has  worked  hard  for  half  a  year 
to  do  good  in  the  congregation;  he  happens  to  use  the  same 
illustration  in  the  sermon  that  he  used  six  months  ago;  and 
somebody,  probably  the  meanest  man  in  the  church,  who 
has  not  paid  six  cents  to  the  support  of  the  gospel  in  a  year, 
raises  a  howl  because  the  preacher  has  not  been  studying 
enough,  uses  his  old  stuff  over.  I  want  you  to  understand 
that  to  preach  for  years  to  the  same  people  is  a  hard  thing 
to  do.  If  you  don't  believe  it,  just  write  out  two  sermons, 
and  try  to  have  the  one  contain  nothing  that  is  in  the  other. 
Why  should  sermons  be  so  different?  There  is  but  one  thing 
to  preach — Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified.  And  if  they  are 
wholly  unlike,  there  is  a  probability  that  they  are  all  wrong. 
What  the  world  needs  is  one  lesson — the  sacrifice  of  Christ 


BOOK  OP  RUTH.  99 

for  the  redemption  of  the  world  from  sin.  What  is  it  that 
Paul  said  he  preached?  Christ  crucified.  That  was  enough. 
Wiho  has  ever  found  any  fault  with  Paul's  limitations,  with 
•his  reputation  as  a  preacher?  The  thing  that  troubles  me  is 
that  you  are  not  Christian  enough  to  understand  that  the 
voice  of  the  minister  is  the  voice  of  Christ.  You  are  criti- 
cising the  man  because  his  diction  is  not  good  or  his  rhet- 
oric faulty.  You  come  to  a  debating  society  instead  of  a 
church  service!  Enter  the  church  service  with  a  critical 
mind,  and  you  can  find  fault  with  any  preacher  that  ever 
stood  before  you.  You  can  kill  his  sermon  and  the  power  of 
his  work  in  the  congregation.  You  ought  to  come  in  and 
pray  to  God  to  help  you  to  enjoy  that  service.  Get  yourself 
right,  and  the  preacher  will  warm  right  up  to  you  every  time. 
I  can  tell  just  as  soon  as  I  get  into  a  congregation  whether  I 
have  struck  a  frost  or  a  warming  time.  I  know  just  as  well 
as  I  know  my  name  the  kind  of  a  crowd  I  have  to  talk  to 
three  minutes  after  I  come  in.  I  know  when  I  have  to  talk 
to  a  crowd  whom  I  have  to  pound  into  sensibility  and  a 
proper  state  of  feeling,  and  when  I  am  speaking  to  Christians 
who  are  hungry  for  the  word  of  God.  I  have  preached  for 
thirty  minutes  before  I  could  say  a  word  of  gospel.  I  had  to 
preach  down  coldness  and  indifference  and  meanness.  And 
in  some  audiences  that  is  hard  work.  I  had  rather  preach 
Jesus  Christ  for  a  month  than  to  preach  the  devil  out  of  a 
congregation  for  twenty  minutes.  It  is  a  more  respectable 
business,  and  a  much  easier  thing  to  do.  Try  more  and  more 
to  impress  upon  our  people  the  necessity  of  coming  to  a  pre- 
pared church  service  with  a  preparedness  of  heart  for  God's 
service. 

She  stuck  to  the  work,  she  abode  in  the  place  of  duty,  she 
toiled  until  the  time  for  rest  came.  The  time  for  rest  will 
come.  Labor  has  its  boundaries  just  as  clearly  defined  as 
rest's  boundaries.  Some  people  do  not  understand  that  the 
time  of  rest  is  not  a  time  of  waste.  They  feel  that  they 
ought  not  to  rest,  because  to  rest  is  to  waste.  That  is  a  mis- 


100  LECTURES  ON  THE 

take.  If  you  want  to  preach  well  in  the  evening,  don't  you 
know  that  the  less  you  eat  for  supper,  and  the  more  you  are 
alone  for  two  or  three  hours  before  you  preach,  the  better 
for  your  congregation  and  for  Christ?  Have  you  not  found 
that  out?  The  preacher  who  wants  to  do  good  work  in  the 
pulpit,  wants  to  honor  God  by  preaching  a  sermon  of  power, 
needs  to  be  alone  with  God,  alone  with  his  thoughts,  quietly 
resting  and  thinking.  "While  I  mused  the  fire  burned."  If 
that  is  a  good  thing  for  the  preacher,  how  would  it  work 
with  the  membership?  If  I  could  preach  to  a  people  who 
would  sit  down  and  meditate  for  an  hour  before  coming  into 
the  sanctuary,  I  believe  I  could  preach  with  power.  The 
congregation  would  exalt  me  into  a  powerful  preacher  in 
spite  of  my  own  lethargy.  I  would  be  ashamed  to  preach  any 
less  thing  than  the  congregation  would  expect.  The  spirit  of 
God  would  stir  me  to  meet  the  expectations  of  that  people. 
We  need  more  communion  with  God,  more  meditation,  more 
pondering  upon  the  word  of  truth,  to  the  end  that  we  may 
come  into  the  service  and  into  the  work  of  God  strengthened. 
.Repose  measures  strength.  This  woman  saved  all  her  energy 
for  her  work.  She  did  not  waste  it  in  fussing  about.  Many 
people  fret  half  their  energy  away.  I  suppose  that  is  natu- 
ral. They  get  nervous  and  excited.  Their  life  is  fretted 
away  in  concern.  They  have  a  fear  they  will  not  do  well.  I 
confess  to  you  that  I  don't  remember  the  time  when  my 
knees  were  shaky  before  a  crowd.  The  remedy  for  that,  my 
brother,  is  an  absolute  surety  in  your  own  mind  of  the  thing 
you  are  going  to  do,  the  confidence  that  is  born  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  thing  required  of  you.  If  you  are  fearful  and 
worried  about  your  power  to  speak,  pray  to  God  far  more 
strength.  After  a  while  you  will  get  so  full  of  the  spirit 
that  you  can't  keep  quiet.  Then  you  can  preach  and  tremble 
.not  at  all.  What  is  the  trouble?  We  are  self-conscious. 
The  first  thing  we  need  when  we  get  up  for  Christ  is  f orget- 
fulness  of  self,  keen  remembrance  of  Christ  Jesus  and  His 
message  to  a  dying  world. 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  101 


LECTURE  IX. 

What  Ruth  had  beaten  out,  her  gleanings  for  the  day,  she 
took  into  the  city.  "And  her  mother  in  law  saw  that  she 
had  gleaned;  and  she  brought  forth,  and  gave  to  her  that 
she  had  reserved  after  she  was  sufficed."  I  call  your  atten- 
tion to  the  home-coming  of  Ruth  in  the  evening  after  her 
day's  toil.  The  most  beautiful  picture  that  one  can  paint  of 
rustic  life  is  the  evening  scene  as  the  twilight  hour  is  creep- 
ing on.  The  mother  is  busy  in  the  house  with  the  evening 
meal.  The  shadows  are  lengthening  along  the  lane. 

"In  the  poplar  tree  about  the  spring, 
The  katydid  begins  to  sing." 

The  little  children's  necks  are  craning  from  the  door  to 
see  the  first  sign  of  the  returning  father.  When  they  see 
him,  they  give  a  shout  and  rush  down  the  path  to  welcome 
him  home.  They  gather  at  the  frugal  table,  and  it  is  a 
feast.  It  may  be  the  simplest  food  in  the  world,  but  all  the 
hearts  that  are  there  love  each  other.  Read  the  "Cotter's 
Saturday  Night,"  by  Burns.  The  very  charm  of  Grey's 
"Elegy"  is  the  portrayal  of  simple  rustic  life.  And  the  sad- 
ness of  the  "Elegy"  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  these  scenes  are 

lost  to  these  people  forever: 

\ 

- 

*Mt     ' 

"For  them  no  more  the  blazing  hearth  shall  burn, 
Or  busy  housewife  ply  her  evening  care; 
No  children  run  to  lisp  their  sire's  return, 
Or  climb  his  knees  the  envied  kiss  to  share." 

Read  Goldsmith's  "Traveler."  You  won't  find  anywhere  in 
all  his  journey  a  place  that  was  so  sweet  as  the  little  place 
up  in  the  Swiss  mountains,  when  in  the  evening  hour  the 


102  LECTURES  ON  THE 

housewife  put  her  clean  plates  upon  the  clean  board  and  set 
her  frugal  meal,  and  gathered  her  children  and  her  loved 
ones  about  her.  I  have  no  sympathy  nor  respect  for  the 
young  man  that  does  not  love  the  evening  hours  in  the  home. 
I  am  tired  of  this  feeling  that  young  fellows  have,  that  as 
soon  as  they  get  supper  and  their  clean  clothes,  they  have  to 
run  to  town  and  spend  the  evening  in  a  saloon,  or  at  the 
store,  or  at  the  blacksmith  shop,  or  at  the  club  meeting,  or  at 
some  other  place  where  the  devil  is  nearer  than  he  can  be  at 
home.  Euth  went  home  after  her  day's  work  was  over.  And 
that  is  your  place  and  mine.  You  have  no  business  running 
around  at  night,  getting  into  questionable  associations. 
Show  me  the  young  fellow  who  loves  his  home  in  the  even- 
ing, and  I  will  show  you  one  who  will  make  an  honorable 
home  for  himself  in  the  years  to  come.  Show  me  the  man 
who  runs  around  in  the  evening,  and  I  will  show  you  a 
young  scamp  who  is  not  fit  to  have  a  home.  If  you  have  a 
good  home  in  this  world,  you  ought  to  thank  G-od  for  it;  and 
you  ought  to  make  it  a  home,  not  simply  a  boarding-house, 
a  place  to  rest  when  you  are  worn  out  with  the  surfeits  of 
pleasure  and  the  questionable  joys  that  come  from  running 
a/bout.  Euth  came  home  in  the  evening!  She  came  home 
happy,  because  she  had  done  an  honest  day's  toil.  She  came 
to  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  there  was  real  rest  for 
her  spirit — in  the  home,  by  the  side  of  her  old  mother-in- 
law,  whom  she  loved,  where  she  could  sit  down  and  talk  and 
rest  and  prepare  for  the  night. 

She  was  a  frugal  woman.  Wastefulness  is  a  sin.  Just  as 
much  a  sin  as  idleness.  There  is  no  difference  between  the 
man  who  is  too  lazy  to  work  and  the  man  who  works  and 
earns  money  and  then  squanders  it  on  useless  things.  She 
worked  out  in  the  field,  and  carried  the  result  of  her  toil 
home.  She  did  not  work  and  spend  it  in  the  saloon  or  on 
other  questionable  things.  You  have  no  business  in  this 
world  to  be  anything  but  frugal.  A  spendthrift  and  an  idler 
are  alike  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  and  a 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  103 

curse  to  the  parents  who  brought  them  into  the  world.  I 
don't  mean  by  that  that  you  have  to  be  stingy.  I  have  no 
sympathy  for  the  man  who  holds  a  penny  until  the  eagle 
screams.  The  best  thing  about  Euth's  economy  was  that  she 
was  frugal  when  she  was  unexpectedly  prosperous.  Any- 
body can  be  frugal  when  he  must  be.  You  can  save  when 
you  must  save.  It  is  hard  to  be  frugal  when  you  have  fifty 
dollars  in  your  pocket  and  no  immediate  demand  upon  you 
for  it.  It  takes  a  righteous  man  then  to  keep  his  hand  from 
dissipating  his  money.  Before  you  spend  the  fifty  dollars 
that  you  have  no  immediate  call  upon  you  for,  stop  and 
think.  You  say, "I  earned  this  money;  all  right,!  can  do  what 
I  please  with  it."  No,  you  can't.  You  have  no  more  right  to 
do  that  than  you  have  to  strike  me  on  the  nose.  You  can  burn 
it  if  you  will,  but  you  have  no  right  to  burn  it.  That  fifty 
dollars  represents  potentially  a  vast  amount  of  good  in  this 
world.  A  missionary  visited  one  day  a  prison  away  in  a  for- 
eign country,  where  lepers  and  others  who  were  down  with 
incurable  diseases  were  chained  to  dying  and  dead  prisoners, 
so  that  they  had  to  live  by  the  side  of  death.  They  were 
given  no  food.  They  died  by  slow  starvation.  The  mis- 
sionary saw  all  this  misery,  and  went  out,  saying,  "God  help 
me  to  see  my  duty  here,"  and  he  went  and  hired  a  mule  and 
loaded  it  down  with  loaves  of  bread  until  its  back  bent  under 
the  burden,  and  he  carried  it  to  the  door  of  the  prison,  and 
with  two  soldiers  he  took  it  in  and  saw  that  every  leper  and 
every  starving  soul  in  that  prison  had  bread.  He  might  have 
spent  that  money  for  a  bottle  of  whiskey.  Had  he  any 
right  to  do  it?  You  get  a  false  notion  when  you  have  money 
given  to  you.  You  feel,  "Well,  now,  I  will  do  what  I  please 
with  this;  I  am  going  to  have  a  good  time.  Father  sent  me 
this  down  as  a  little  extra  spending-money,  mother  slipped 
this  into  the  envelope  without  saying  anything  to  father,  as 
a  little  extra  present.  I  will  'blow  it  in/  "  Look  out!  That 
is  a  dangerous  feeling  in  any  young  person.  Before  you 
spend  your  money,  remember  you  have  a  right  to  stop  and 


104  LECTURES  ON  THE 

ask  yourself  the  question,  What  does  this  money  represent 
potentially?  What  are  its  possibilities  in  this  world?  How 
many  souls  will  it  bring  to  Christ?  How  many  hungry  peo- 
ple will  it  feed?  How  many  people  will  it  educate  and  make 
powerful  to  do  good  work  in  the  world?  Before  you  can 
solve  the  question  of  spending  that  money,  you  have  to  solve 
all  these  other  questions  that  depend  upon  it.  Men  ought  to 
know  this,  and  women  ought  to  know  this.  Women  often 
have  little  sense  about  money  matters.  They  don't  know 
now  hard  it  is  to  earn  it.  They  are  not  as  careful  in  standing 
by  husband  and  father  in  caring  for  it  as  they  ought  to  be. 
Girls  are  constantly  saying,  "Give  me  more,  give  me  more." 
You  don't  know  what  burdens  you  lay  upon  the  hard- 
worked  father  that  gives  it  to  you.  When  you  can  give  up 
a  thing  easier  than  your  father  can  give  it  to  you,  you  have 
no  business  to  ask  him  for  it,  I  don't  care  what  it  is. 

I  did  not  always  realize  that.  My  notion  of  the  thing  was 
that  the  more  I  got  from  father,  the  better  for  me.  It  is  not 
BO.  I  did  not  stop  to  think  about  the  days  of  toil  and  the 
nights  of  worry  that  it  cost  my  father  to  earn  it.  I  only 
thought  its  possession  meant  so  much  ice  cream,  and  this,  and 
that,  and  the  other  thing;  and  away  it  went.  Let  us  under- 
stand that  the  sacred  honor  of  the  home  is  back  of  the  money 
that  we  spend.  More  than  that,  the  sacred  toil  of  mother- 
hood and  fatherhood  is  back  of  it.  You  have  no  business 
to  be  a  spendthrift.  A  man  that  lives  fast  not  only  dissi- 
pates himself,  but  is  a  disgrace  to  his  father  and  his  mother, 
and  a  rioter  in  a  community  that  is  pledged  for  order  and 
peace.  Spend  your  evenings  at  home,  and  you  will  not  learn 
these  habits.  They  don't  sell  beer  there.  There  is  no  billiard 
table  there.  There  is  no  theatre  show  there,  with  its  ques- 
tionable attachments.  Stay  beside  your  old  mother  in  the 
evenings,  and  teach  your  younger  brothers  to  do  the  same. 
Spend  the  evenings  with  your  old  father;  stand  by  them 
just  as  long  as  you  can.  It  ought  not  to  be  a  burden;  it  is 
your  solemn  duty.  If  you  can't  sit  by  them  in  the  evening, 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  105 

make  those  evening  hours  just  as  rosy  as  you  can  from  a  dis- 
tance by  dropping  a  word,  of  kindness  in  a  nice  letter  as  often 
as  you  can.  You  will  come  to  know  later  on,  when  you  no 
longer  have  these  auxiliaries  to  a  good  life,  how  much  they 
meant  to  you.  You  little  realized  the  power  of  mother's  and 
father's  love.  All  of  you  who  were  at  the  World's  Fair  (and 
those  of  you  who  were  not  there  have  read  about  it  since) 
were  probably  impressed  more  with  one  thing  there  than 
with  anything  else — a  little  painting  by  Thomas  Hovenden, 
of  Plymouth  Meeting,  Pennsylvania,  down  in  Montgomery 
county.  He  painted  a  canvas  and  sold  it  to  Mr.  Harrison,  the 
Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  subject  of 
the  painting  is  "Breaking  Home  Ties."  There  is  the  old 
grandmother  knitting  in  the  corner  of  the  simple  room, 
cheap  paper  on  the  walls  and  no  carpet  on  the  floor,  a  plain 
old  pine  table,  an  old  clock.  There  is  a  cat  curled  up  before 
the  hearth,  asleep.  There  is  a  little  toddling  baby  by  the 
side  of  the  old  grandmother.  Out  at  the  door,  with  his  back 
turned,  is  the  father,  with  his  pants  in  his  boots  and  his 
whip  in  his  hand,  ready  to  haul  the  boy  to  .the  town  and 
start  him  off  from  home.  There  is  the  sister  at  the  door, 
ready  to  say  the  last  good-bye.  And  there  is  the  big  tall 
boy,  standing  saying  good-bye  to  his  mother,  with  his  hand 
laid  in  hers.  She  has  hers  laid  over  his,  and  she  looks  up  in 
her  boy's  face  and  is  saying  good-bye  to  him.  That  good-bye 
meant  much  to  that  mother.  That  picture  touched  a  chord 
in  every  heart.  Women  stood  before  it  and  cried.  I  tell 
you,  the  hardest  thing  in  this  world,  if  you  are  a  genuine 
man  or  woman,  is  to  give  up  your  home  ties. 

As  long  as  a  boy  has  a  genuine  home-sickness  in  his  soul 
for  his  father  and  mother,  there  is  an  element  in  him  that  is 
able  to  save  him,  some  time,  from  ruin.  When  that  is  gone, 
I  know  not  what  there  is  next  for  that  boy.  He  is  in  the 
whirlpool  that  will  suck  him  down  to  hell.  I  know  no  hand 
save  the  hand  of  Almighty  God  that  can  snatch  him  out  of 
the  churning  maelstrom  of  despair.  Ruth  spent  her  evening 


106  LECTURES  ON  THE 

at  home.  There  would  be  fewer  boys  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river  in  the  Reformatory  if  they  had  spent  their  evenings 
where  Ruth  did.  There  would  be  fewer  ropes  stretched  with 
murderers  in  this  country  if  there  were  more  people  spend- 
ing their  evenings  at  home.  There  would  be  more  seekers  of 
religion  on  their  bended  knees  in  this  country  to-day  if 
every  boy  spent  his  evenings  at  home.  There  would  be 
purer  religion,  more  devoted  Christians,  more  of  everything 
that  is  righteous,  less  of  everything  that  is  unrighteous,  in 
this  world,  if  the  boys  and  girls  would  stay  at  home  at  night 
instead  of  running,  God  only  knows  where,  and  doing  what 
no  tongue  can  tell.  The  evening  came,  and  she  went  home, 
carrying  the  toil  of  the  day  in  her  weary  body,  carrying  the 
reward  of  her  toil  on  her  bended  shoulders,  and  sat  down 
there  with  her  old  mother-in-law.  Preachers,  I  want  you  to 
go  back  to  your  congregations  to  tell  your  people  the  duty 
of  making  the  home  a  centre  of  interest.  Now,  there  is  an- 
other side  to  this.  I  have  talked  pretty  straight  to  these 
young  people.  I  have  no  apology  for  that.  Now  I  want  to 
make  a  plea  on  the  other  side. 

Some  of  you  will  have  homes  after  a  while.  Some  of  you 
in  front  here  have  them  now.  Why,  in  the  name  of  grace, 
don't  you  make  the  home  so  that  a  boy  can  stay  in  it;  not 
only  so  that  he  can,  but  so  that  he  will  want  to?  Why  don't 
you  make  a  home  for  your  boy,  instead  of  a  boarding-house? 
Some  of  you  have  a  boy.  Just  as  soon  as  he  is  big  enough 
to  make  a  noise,  he  is  in  the  way  in  the  home.  He  is  told  to 
keep  quiet.  As  soon  as  he  is  big  enough  not  to  be  afraid  of 
ghosts,  he  is  pushed  up  into  the  garret  to  sleep.  He  is  given 
an  old  bed  and  an  old  dingy  room.  He  has  no  place  under 
the  sun  that  is  his  save  a  miserable  comer.  His  soul  revolts. 
He  breaks  out  from  that.  He  goes  forth.  Then  you  sit  in 
the  gloom  of  the  night  and  mournfully  sing,  "Where  is  my 
wandering  boy  to-night,  where  is  my  wandering  boy 
to-night?"  Why  did  you  not  sing  before  that,  What  can  I 
do  to  keep  my  boy  from  wandering  in  the  night?  And  you 


BOOK  OF  KUTH.  107 

would  not  have  a  song  of  woe  over  a  wandering  boy  to-night. 
We  have  not  much  sense  in  this  country  nowadays  as  to  the 
right  relation  of  the  home  to  our  children.  Why,  it  is  an  awful 
thing  to  drive  a  boy  away  from  'his  home,  to  turn  him  loose 
without  an  anchorage  in  this  world.  I  would  sacrifice  a  horse, 
a  farm,  before  I  would  sacrifice  a  boy.  Did  you  ever  buy  a 
book  for  him  in  your  life?  Did  you  ever  hang  a  picture  in 
his  room?  Did  you  ever  do  anything  for  him  except  scold 
him  when  he  is  bad,  and  dig  at  him  continually  to  be  better? 
Now,  I  can't  speak  from  personal  experience  about  this.  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  I  always  had  a  good  home.  I  was  not 
driven  out  of  my  home;  but  I  know  boys  that  were.  Let  us 
learn  to  make  a  boy  love  his  home  more  .than  he  loves  any- 
thing else  on  earth.  And  when  he  comes  to  marry,  I  want 
the  deepest  sorrow  of  ;his  marriage-day  to  be  the  thought 
that  he  is  giving  up  his  mother  and  his  home.  I  want  him  to 
feel  that  above  everything  else.  God  pity  the  fatherless,  the 
motherless,  the  homeless  soul! 

Out  there  on  the  farm  your  father  brought  you  up;  and 
before  your  father,  your  grandfather  brought  your  father  up. 
For  four  generations  they  are  asleep  in  the  family  graveyard. 
There  lies  your  great-grandfather;  he  died  eighty  years  ago. 
There  is  his  name  on  the  tombstone,  cut  in  German.  There 
is  his  son,  your  grandfather;  he  died  sixty  years  ago.  There 
is  his  name  cut  in  the  stone  in  English.  And  there  is  your 
father's  name;  he  died  ten  years  ago.  There  they  are,  all 
asleep.  Do  you  know,  before  I  would  pull  up  stakes  and 
leave  that  sacred  city  of  the  dead,  and  abandon  those  tomb- 
stones, I  would  think  a  long  time.  I  would  not  pull  up 
stakes  from  such  a  centre  of  anchorage  as  that  unless  I  had 
a  pretty  secure  thought  in  my  soul  that  I  could  do  better 
away  than  I  could  do  there.  I  am  sure  I  would  not  do  in  a 
moment  of  foolishness  what  many  boys  are  doing — pack  my 
trunk  and  run  out  West  and  take  my  chances.  Ruth  came 
home  in  the  evening.  That  is  the  place  for  you  and  me.  If 
you  have  a  good  home,  make  it  a  better  home.  If  you  have 


108  LECTURES  ON  THE 

not  a  good  (home,  pray  that  it  may  become  a  good  home  to 
your  soul.  A  good  home  is  a  good  place  to  spend  the  even- 
ing of  a  well-spent  day.  I  like  the  unity  of  the  home;  the 
holding  on  to  the  home  power,  the  home  ties,  the  home  influ- 
ence, just  as  long  as  it  is  possible  to  hold  them. 

A  good  home  is  a  great  stimulus  to  purity.  I  mean  by  a 
good  home,  a  home  where  everybody  is  free  in  the  evening 
to  tell  everything  they  did  in  the  whole  day.  You  are  not  fit 
to  go  home  unless  you  are  able  to  tell  what  you  did  the  whole 
day.  If  you  can  go  home  and  talk  as  Euth  did,  over  the 
whole  day's  performance,  and  tell  it  all  without  reserve,  if 
you  have  lived  clean  all  day,  so  that  you  can  bring  your  life 
before  the  hearthstone  in  the  evening  and  tell  it  in  the  light 
of  the  blazing  fire,  you  are  an  honor  to  the  home.  Every  con- 
fession at  the  hearthstone — of  infinitely  more  value  than  the 
confessional — is  a  tie  that  strengthens  the  soul  and  counts 
for  purity  in  the  life.  If  you  tell  your  old  mother  everything 
you  do,  you  are  not  likely  to  do  anything  very  bad.  If  you 
tell  your  father  everything  you  did  in  the  past  month,  you 
are  a  boy  that  is  doing  about  right.  I  would  take  such  a 
fellow  into  my  bank,  and  I  would  not  watch  him  with  spec- 
tacles to  see  what  he  was  doing.  When  you  have  to  come 
home  in  the  evening  and  the  one  question  in  your  \mind  is, 
How  can  I  keep  mother  from  finding  out  what  has  been 
going  on;  how  can  I  conceal  it  from  father?  there  is  some- 
thing wrong  there  that  is  going  to  kill  the  home.  It  is  going 
to  destroy  you;  there  is  no  question  about  it. 

Notice  the  effect  of  all  this  upon  Naomi.  You  remember, 
at  the  close  of  the  first  chapter,  when  the  neighbors  said,  "Is 
this  Naomi?"  she  said,  "Don't  call  me  that  any  more;  call  me 
Mara."  Now  she  forgets  all  that,  and  for  the  first  time  the 
bitterness  begins  to  melt  out  of  her  life,  and  she  begins  to 
feel  that  she  has  a  home.  Here  is  somebody  to  sit  with  her, 
to  converse  with  her,  to  build  into  her  life  and  to  receive 
from  her  life.  And  so  again  she  is  Naomi,  and  her  soul  is 
filled  with  gratitude,  and  her  heart  is  touched,  and  she  is 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  109 

strengthened.  She  turns  and  puts  a  question  to  Ruth  that  I 
want  you  to  ponder.  As  Ruth  oame  in  the  door,  Naomi  said, 
"Where  hast  thou  gleaned  to-day?"  I  want  you  to  ask  your- 
selves that  question  every  evening  when  you  come  home, 
"Where  have  I  gleaned  to-day?"  It  contains  in  it  so  much 
of  the  searching  power  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  that  I  don't 
know  any  better  text  in  the  whole  Book  of  Ruth  for  your 
soul.  "Where  hast  thou  gleaned  to-day?"  The  old  mother's 
question  is  a  searching  question.  It  measures  the  deep  con- 
cern of  the  mother-in-law.  Where  is  your  boy  to-night?  If 
you  had  asked,  as  Naomi  did,  every  evening  as  your  boy  came 
home,  and  had  been  patient  enough  to  listen  to  his  day's 
routine,  you  would  not  have  to  ask  that  question  to-night. 
When  he  came  home  and  wanted  to  tell  you,  you  perhaps 
said,  "I  don't  want  to  be  bothered;  I  am  busy  now."  And 
when  he  got  out  of  the  way  of  telling,  and  came  home  and 
had  nothing  to  say,  you  tempted  him  into  secrecy  by  say- 
ing, "Where  have  you  been  to-day?"  That  is  not  the  way 
ivaomi  asked  the  question.  It  was  an  inquiry  of  deep  con- 
cern. There  was  no  reproof,  no  sting,  no  cutting  sarcasm. 
Yet  I  take  it  that  half  the  boys  'that  come  home  in  the  even- 
ing are  met  with  the  question,  "What  have  you  been  doing 
now?"  I  have  no  language  for  that  kind  of  thing.  Try  it 
on  yourself  some  time  and  see  how  you  like  it. 

"Where  hast  thou  gleaned  to-day?  Come  and  tell  me  about 
it  all.  I  am  interested  in  you,  Ruth.  I  have  thought  of  you 
#11  day.  At  the  noontime,  when  I  sat  here  hungry,  without 
food,  I  knelt  down  and  asked  God  to  bless  you,  that  you 
might  'bring  home  enough  to  feed  us  both  at  this  evening 
hour.  I  wondered  where  you  were;  with  what  success  you 
were  gleaning.  I  wondered  in  whose  field  you  were  gleaning. 
I  wondered  how  it  went  with  you.  I  have  been  following  you 
with  my  prayers,  my  sympathies,  my  thoughts,  all  this  day. 
Tell  me  about  it."  And  then  Ruth  sits  down  and  tells  the 
«tory  of  the  day  and  lays  (the  foundation  of  the  mutual  con- 
fidence out  of  which  sprang  a  new  home  in  Bethlehem,  a 


110  LECTURES  ON  THE 

home  of  such  tremendous  strength  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
sprang  out  of  it,  and  had  to  call  Euth  among  His  ancestors. 
Again  I  call  your  attention  to  the  question.  It  measures  the 
steadfastness  of  the  gleaner.  As  long  as  she  could  tell  every 
evening  when  she  came  home  what  she  did  during  the  day, 
it  was  a  sign  of  her  continuity  in  action  and  consistency  in 
purpose.  Then,  again,  I  am  going  to  ask  you  a  question,  a 
pointed  question — Where  have  you  been  to-day?  That  ques- 
tion must  be  answered  by  you  now.  I  don't  mean  where  has 
your  body  been.  I  mean,  Where  has  your  spirit  been? 
Where  have  your  affections  been?  Where  have  your  inter- 
ests been?  Where  have  you  been  to-day?  Would  you  like  ta 
stand  up  and  tell  all  the  places  you  have  thought  about,  all 
the  things  you  have  thought  about,  all  the  round  of  your 
life's  concern  since  the  sun  rose  this  morning?  Where  have 
you  been  to-day?  What  have  you  thought?  What  have  you 
lived?  What  has  your  soul  fed  upon?  What  have  you 
gleaned? 

Again,  I  call  your  attention  to  this  thought — the  word 
"where."  It  asks  for  a  geographical  answer.  A  man  ought 
to  answer  for  the  place  he  is  in.  What  right  has  a  man  to  be 
in  jail,  or  in  any  other  place,  unless  he  can  give  a  reason  for 
his  place.  Where  have  you  been?  Where  are  you?  I  often 
think  of  that  tramp  that  Joseph  Walton  met  down  on  the 
pike  near  Coatesville.  He  was  one  of  those  whereless,  wan- 
dering sort  of  fellows.  Joseph  said  to  him,  "Where  are  you  ?" 
He  said,  "I  don't  know."  "Where  did  you  come  from?"  He 
said,  "I  don't  know."  "Where  are  you  going?"  "I  don't 
know."  "What  are  you  doing?"  He  said,  "I  am  just  fol- 
lowing those  telegraph  wires;  I  reckon  I  will  get  some  place, 
some  time."  When  Joseph  Walton  told  that  story  in  church, 
some  time  afterward,  a  woman  got  up  and  said:  "If  I  had 
been  that  tramp,  I  would  have  answered  that  question  an- 
oiiher  way.  In  answer  to  the  question  'where  am  I?'  I  would 
have  said,  1  thank  God  I  am  in  a  Christian  church  where  I 
can  speak  for  Christ.'  In  answer  to  the  question  "where  did 


BOOK  OF  RUTH.  Ill 

I  come  from?'  I  would  say,  'I  'thank  God  I  came  from  a  Chris- 
tian home  where  I  had  a  righteous  training  and  a  good  father 
and  a  good  mother/  In  answer  to  the  question  'where  am  I 
going  ?'  I  would  answer,  'I  hope  to  be  able  by  the  influence 
of  my  home  and  my  church  to  get  to  heaven.  Pray  for  me 
that  I  may  be  faithful/ >:  There  was  a  "where"  in  that  life 
that  centred  in  something  and  made  it  a  power.  Where  are 
you  to-night? 

Notice  the  other  side  of  the  question,  "Where  hast  thou 
gleaned  to-day?"  A  man  must  remember  that  he  has  to 
answer  for  the  time  that  he  uses.  He  must  remember  that 
opportunity  measures  possibility,  and  possibility  measures 
responsibility.  So  far  as  in  you  lies,  do  good  to  all  men;  not 
half-way,  but  to  the  full  limit  of  your  energy.  Don't  let  any- 
thing interfere  with  that.  "Where  hast  thou  gleaned 
to-day?"  The  last  thought  in  the  text  that  I  want  to  im- 
press upon  you  is  the  fact  that  we  are  all  gleaners.  We  are 
beggars  in  God's  field,  without  a  right  to  do  anything  except 
in  so  far  as  His  mercy  and  love  make  it  possible  for  us  to  do 
anything.  Gleaning  in  God's  fields!  Let  us  be  grateful  to 
Him  who  gives  us  the  right.  I  bless  God  that  He  has  sent 
into  that  field  our  Redeemer,  our  Kinsman,  who,  like  Boaz 
to  Ruth,  redeemed  her  into  the  royal  line.  Just  so  Jesus 
Christ  comes  into  the  field  of  the  world  and  redeems  every 
child  of  God,  and  makes  him  near  of  kin  to  Him,  and  through 
Him  an  heir  to  eternal  glory.  Thank  God  that  He  can 
redeem  you  from  beggary  and  make  you  a  child  of  the 
Kingdom. 


112  LECTURES  ON 


Lectures  on  St.  John's  Gospel* 


LECTURE  X. 

We  have  four  views  of  Christ's  ministry:  Matthew's, 
Mark's,  Luke's  and  John's.  When  one  really  wants  to  read 
for  his  own  comfort  and  enlightenment,  not  simply  the  facts 
of  the  life  of  Christ,  but  the  life  itself,  he  turns  to  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John.  How  many  of  you  read  John  more  than  you  do 
any  other  gospel?  It  is  not  like  the  others.  It  deals  with 
the  same  things.  John  was  a  peculiar  man;  he  lived  so  near 
to  Christ.  He  was  called  the  Beloved  Disciple,  the  one  whom 
Jesus  loved.  He  nestled  up  close  to  Him.  His  life  seemed  to 
be  thoroughly  steeped  with  the  spirit  of  the  Master.  He  got 
hold  of  things,  he  heard  things,  he  saw  things,  he  realized 
things  that  'the  ordinary  writer  and  the  ordinary  witnesses 
did  not  see  and  did  not  hear  and  did  not  understand.  John, 
as  you  know,  was  the  younger  brother  of  James.  They  were 
both  called  by  Christ  Himself  to  be  His  followers;  called 
from,  if  one  may  judge  from  incidental  things,  a  fairly  well- 
to-do  family.  The  father  had  servants  in  his  house,  and 
Salome,  the  mother,  is  one  of  the  women  who,  on  a  certain 
occasion,  made  very  important  contributions  to  the  comfort 
of  Christ.  They  were  not  a  poor  family,  and  the  mother  was 
expressly  noted  for  her  piety.  She  had  brought  up  this 
young  man  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  He 
was  peculiarly  prepared  from  youth  to  become  a  power  in 
the  work  when  he  espoused  it.  You  know,  perhaps,  and  per- 
haps you  don't,  that  after  the  crucifixion  John  remained  at 
Jerusalem  and  did  what  he  was  commanded  to  do  of  Christ — 
take  care  of  his  mother  until  she  died,  probably  about  the 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  113 

year  59.  Then  'he  went  into  Asia  Minor,  preaching,  carrying 
on  the  work  of  Paul,  established  a  number  of  churches, 
and  made  his  headquarters  for  the  most  part  at  the  city  of 
Ephesus.  It  was  here  he  met  with  persecution.  It  was  from 
here  that  Nero  banished  him  to  the  island  of  Patmos.  That 
was  John's  opportunity.  There  he  dreamed  the  marvelous 
Book  of  E/evelation,  looked  up  into  -the  City  of  God.  He 
came  back  to  Jerusalem  in  his  old  days,  and  died  about  the 
year  100,  and  aged  about  an  hundred  years.  Such,  in  brief, 
is  the  life  of  the  man.  Note  what  he  says  about  Christ.  Look 
at  the  way  he  begins  this  marvelous  gospel.  It  is  unique. 
Read  the  first  three  words  of  Genesis,  and  then  the  first  three 
words  of  this  Book  of  John.  How  do  they  differ?  They  are 
alike.  That  is  not  true  of  any  other  books  of  the  whole  Bible. 
Here  is  a  man  who  does  know  the  place  to  start  the  narrative 
of  Christ.  He  starts  where  the  whole  thing  starts,  with  God 
in  the  beginning.  It  is  a  rather  significant  statement,  it 
seems  to  me,  to  get  this  additional  light  on  the  Book  of 
Genesis.  There  we  read  that  in  the  'beginning  God  created 
the  heavens  and  the  earth.  Here  we  read  that  there  was 
somebody  with  Him  when  He  did  it.  In  the  beginning  was 
what?  The  Word.  Alone?  With  God.  That  gives  a  vast 
amount  of  comfort  to  start  with,  that  God  was  not  alone 
when  He  stood  out  there  to  create  things.  There  was  the 
Word  by  his  side;  there  were  the  holy  angels  to  minister  to 
Him,  to  obey  His  calls,  to  do  His  purpose.  And  somehow  it 
makes  warm  with  interest,  it  makes  glorious  with  its  sur- 
roundings, the  marvelous  work  of  God  in  creating  the  world, 
to  know  that  He  was  surrounded  by  creatures  of  His  own 
soul  in  that  stupendous  work. 

"In  €16  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  -the  Word  was  with 
God."  Is  there  any  characteristic  set  forth  of  this  Word? 
What  about  it;  how  do  we  know  anything  of  this  Word? 
What  does  John  say  about  it?  "And  the  Word  was  God." 
There  we  are,  round  a  ring.  We  thought  we  had  somebody 
besides  God;  now  we  have  'this  somebody  merged  into  God. 


114  LECTURES  ON 

How  can  we  understand  that?  Who  can  understand  the 
mystery  of  the  Godhead  itself?  Who  can  understand  how 
three  can  be  one,  and  one  can  be  three?  Christ  down  here  in 
the  world  talking  about  the  Father;  the  Father  sent  me 
away  from  Him.  I  am  down  here.  I  pray  to  the  Father.  I 
commune  with  the  Father.  I  am  here  from  the  Father.  And 
He  turns  around  in  another  place  and  says,  I  and  the  Father 
are  one.  It  is  a  mystery;  and  yet  it  is  not  a  mystery.  Christ 
and  God  could  be  one  just  in  proportion  as  they  thought 
alike,  just  in  proportion  as  they  were  alike.  If  they  were 
identical  in  thought,  in  purpose,  in  feeling,  if  they  were 
alike,  then  they  were  one.  It  is  not  harder  to  see  how  three 
can  be  one  than  it  is  to  see  how  three  thousand  can  be  one. 
You  remember  in  your  Sunday-school  lesson,  at  Pentecost 
they  were  all  together  in  one  place  with  one  accord.  There 
was  a  oneness  there.  They  were  all  of  one  mind  and  one 
soul.  Whose  mind?  Whose  soul?  They  were  all  self-centred 
the  day  before,  and  now  they  are  all  God-centred  and  alike. 
So  here  you  have  this  thought,  that  God  had  companionship 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  this  companionship  was  identi- 
cal with  Himself.  What,  then,  shall  we  say  as  to  the  charac- 
teristic of  this  marvelous  beginning?  Look  at  the  fourth 
verse.  Let  us  begin  to  study  a  little  of  the  Kevelation  of  'this 
Word.  What  does  it  say?  In  Him  was  life.  I  wish  you  and 
I  could  come  to  understand  the  important  fact  taught  all 
through  the  book,  that  God  is  the  great  reservoir  of  life.  We 
talk  about  Him  as  the  living  God,  it  is  true;  we  think  about 
Him  as  defeating  death.  But  we  somehow  have  not  come  to 
understand  that  all  life  was  inherent  in  Him  in  the  begin- 
ning and  returns  to  Him  at  the  end.  Just  as  much  life  as 
you  have  to-day,  and  just  as  much  as  any  soul  has,  is  the 
gift  of  God,  the  expression  outward  of  His  divine  self  to  you. 
In  Him  was  life.  This  is  the  Book  of  Life,  as  He  is.  the 
source  of  Life.  This  is  the  revelation  of  Life,  as  He  is  the 
beginning  of  Life.  This  is  the  prophecy  of  Life.  This  is 
the  consummation  of  Life.  ISTo  wonder  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  115 

could  come  into  this  troublesome  world  in  which  men  were 
dropping  dead  before  Him,  and  death  menacing  and  staring 
in  the  face  of  all,  and  could  stand  and  say,  in  the  face  of 
death  and  all,  "I  am  the  Life."  He  knew  where  He  came 
from;  He  knew  the  source  of  His  power;  He  was  the  Life  be- 
cause He  was  God.  Take  out  of  Him  His  Godness,  and  He 
is  dead.  Put  again  into  Him  His  Godliness,  or  His  Godness, 
and  you  put  into  Him  again  Life.  God  could  take  chunks  of 
clay  and  mould  them  into  any  form  He  wanted — monkey, 
baboon,  tree,  or  pumpkin.  But  when  He  breathed  life  into 
:a  form,  it  waa  His  own  image.  It  was  man. 

Life,  then,  is  God's  attribute;  it  is  the  quality  that  marks 
Him  as  the  thing  He  is.  You  could  no  more  think  of  God 
without  -life  than  you  could  think  of  a  day  without  light. 
That  is  the  central  thought  that  John  takes  here.  God  is 
life,  and  God's  record  is  the  record  of  life,  and  God's  destiny 
is  the  destiny  of  life.  He  came  as  the  revealer  of  life,  as  the 
dispenser  of  life,  as  the  interpreter  of  life,  as  the  divine  bene- 
factor endowing  every  soul  with  larger  life,  with  a  larger  ele- 
ment of  God.  You  have  here  this  beautiful  thought,  which 
brings  to  me  comfort  always — that  God  from  the  beginning 
is  a  God  of  life,  and  not  of  death.  For  that  reason  death 
•can  never  have  any  prominent  place  in  God's  economy.  You 
can  lie  down  and  die;  but  you  cannot  stay  dead  if  you  are 
God's,  for  that  would  be  impossible.  He  is  a  God  of  life.  If 
you  are  alive  you  will  live  forevennore,  if  you  get  your  life 
from  Him.  It  is  a  part  of  you.  It  must  come  home  to  Him 
when  He  /wants  it.  You  are  just  a  wandering  spirit  flitting 
around  in  a  trackless  void.  And  God's  own  purpose  will 
draw  it  back  to  Him  when  He  needs  it.  It  is  only  the  dead 
thing  that  falls  out  of  God's  purpose  and  is  lost. 

If  you  are  alive  in  Christ,  which  means  the  spiritual  life, 
the  life  that  Nicodemus  could  not  understand  how  a  man 
could  get,  'but  without  which  Christ  told  him  plainly  he 
could  not  enter  into  the  Kingdom,  then  you  can  never  die. 
In  the  beginning,  then,  we  have  this  picture  of  life.  How 


116  LECTURES  ON 

does  this  life  come  to  make  itself  felt  with  us?  In  Him  was- 
life.  How  do  we  know  that  life  was  in  Him  when  He  came? 
Because  life  is  an  active  principle.  We  cannot  keep  it  still. 
When  a  thing  is  alive,  it  will  move.  That  is  what  proves  it 
to  be  alive.  If  you  take  out  of  it  this  motion,  prevent  it 
from  manifesting  or  expressing  itself  in  any  action,  it  is  not 
alive.  I  venture  the  assertion  this  afternoon  that  the  mea- 
sure of  life  everywhere  is  its  expression  in  activity.  John 
says,  "And  the  life  was  the  light."  It  was  an  illumination. 
It  manifested  the  fact  that  here  was  an  active,  pulsing,  throb- 
bing, beating  life.  Touch  the  life  and  bid  it  be  still,  and  the 
light  is  gone.  But  just  as  long  as  the  life  is  alive,  so  long  will 
the  light  shine.  There  is  no  difference  between  life  and  light. 
They  are  as  inseparable  as  the  valley  and  the  hill.  You  can't 
have  a  hill  without  a  valley,  nor  a  valley  without  a  hill.  You 
can't  have  light  without  life,  nor  life  without  light,  nor  either 
without  God.  God  is  the  life  of  the  world;  and  because  He 
is  the  life  of  the  world  He  is  the  light  of  the  world;  and  be- 
cause He  is  the  light  of  the  world  He  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world.  Life  breaks  into  light  in  the  world. 
The  rest  of  this  history  John  had  not  time  to  write.  If  he 
had  begun  where  God  began  with  the  light,  and  traced  the 
history  of  the  world  to  Christ,  it  would  have  taken  him  too 
long  to  write  it.  John  is  too  anxious  to  get  at  the  thing  he 
wanted  to  say.  So  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  verse  he  simply 
stops.  There  is  a  great  lull  in  the  discussion.  He  practically 
says:  "If  you  want  to  know  what  is  between  this  and  what  I 
am  going  to  say  next,  read  what  Moses  said;  read  all  the 
books  that  have  been  written.  They  are  the  great  interlude. 
I  have  not  time  to  put  this  down.  Here  is  something  I  am 
interested  in/' 

Here  begins  the  second  part  of  this  marvelous  book.  What 
is  it  about?  Look  at  the  sixth  verse.  A  tremendous  jump  in 
time  here.  "There  was  a  man  sent  from  God,  whose  name 
was  John."  What  has  that  to  do  with  all  these  things  he 
has  been  talking  about,  about  life  and  light  and  God  and  the 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  117 

Word?  Let  us  see.  He  could  not  say  this  unless  he  had 
said  the  other.  The  other  would  mean  nothing  without  this. 
This  would  be  tame  history  without  that.  There  was  a  man. 
Just  a  man  came.  In  another  place  you  can  read  that  Mat- 
thew saw  him.  He  says  what  kind  of  man  he  was,  what  he 
ate,  how  he  was  dressed — speaks  of  him  in  a  way  that  would 
lead  me  to  believe  that  John  came  out  of  the  wilderness  with 
fire,  and  with  terror,  and  with  power.  He  was  a  manly  man, 
a  rugged  man,  a  powerful  man.  "There  was  a  man  sent  from 
God/'  How  strange  this  reads  from  the  pen  of  Matthew. 
Turn  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew.  These  are  the  genera- 
tions of  Jesus  Christ;  tries  to  find  Christ  away  back  in  the 
line  of  Jewish  ancestors.  Turn  to  the  Book  of  Mark,  and 
notice  how  he  finds  Christ.  He  goes  hunting  for  Christ 
in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah.  Take  Luke,  and  see  how  he 
finds  this  blessed  Christ.  He  traces  Him  in  the  mystery  of 
the  temple  worship.  John  knew  better  than  all  that.  He 
knew  that  Christ  did  not  come  out  of  Jewish  ancestors;  he 
knew  that  He  did  not  come  out  of  the  prophets;  he  knew  that 
He  did  not  come  out  of  the  temple  mysteries;  he  knew  that 
He  came  from  God,  and  that  any  man  that  had  the  right  to 
speak  for  Him  must  come  from  the  same  place.  Here  is 
John  the  forerunner.  My  friends,  you  can  speak  for  Christ 
if  you  are  sent  from  Him.  If  you  are  not,  you  had  better 
keep  still.  "There  was  a  man  sent  from  God."  He  is  a  power. 
You  can  trace  your  descent  downward,  or  you  can  trace  it 
upward,  just  as  you  please.  John  found  the  ancestry  of  this 
whole  new  dispensation  around  the  throne  of  God.  He  came 
from  God.  Do  you  remember  how  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Spain  received  Columbus  when  he  had  visited  the  New 
World  and  had  returned?  The  king  'had  parted  with  his 
money  and  the  queen  with  her  jewels  to  send  out  his  boats. 
They  wanted  to  hear  about  this  New  World.  So  they  re- 
ceived Columbus  with  marvelous  interest,  invited  him  to 
stand  before  the  royal  presence  and  tell  of  his  unique  journey 
to  a  new  world.  Columbus  came  from  America.  If  a  man 


118  LECTURES  ON 

were  to  walk  in  here  from  India,  you  would  all  stretch  your 
necks  to  look  at  him.  He  comes  from  a  place  you  are  inter- 
ested in.  You  want  to  know  how  it  is  over  there.  You  are 
not  satisfied  until  you  know  something  about  India.  And 
here  is  John.  I  am  not  surprised  that  the  people  listened  to 
him.  He  came  from  a  place  to  which  the  people  were  look- 
ing for  something.  He  came  from  God.  What  has  he  to 
say?  Listen  to  his  message.  Here  is  the  first  voice  that 
speaks  out  in  the  New  Testament  for  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 
Notice  a  peculiar  thing.  When  Moses  went  down  into  Egypt, 
and  old  Pharaoh  looked  at  him  and  said,  "Where  are  you 
from;  what  did  you  come  for?"  do  you  remember  what  Moses 
said?  "I  Am  hath  sent  me."  It  certainly  terrorized  that  old 
Egyptian  king,  because  behind  that  "I  Am"  was  the  scourge 
that  brought  Egypt  into  submission.  It  was  not  merely  two 
words,  it  was  the  majesty  of  God  in  a  subject  and  predicate. 
That  made  Moses  great.  He  had  a  message,  a  command,  a 
commission  from  a  powerful  source.  So  he  led  Israel  in  the 
name  of  I  Am.  And  John  says  here  in  this  gospel  that  John, 
the  forerunner,  came  from  the  same  source.  That  makes 
him  pretty  nearly  like  Moses,  does  it  not?  That  is  not  all. 
For  when  tihe  real  Light  came,  and  got  into  a  dispute  with 
the  old  carping,  (hard-hearted  Pharisees  and  Sadducees, 
when  they  wrangled  with  him  and  drove  him  into  a  state- 
ment of  his  position,  do  you  remember  when  they  said, 
"What  is  'the  use  of  you  talking  to  us?  We  are  Abraham's 
children ;  we  are  none  of  your  common  rabble ; "  He  looked  at 
their  self-pride  and  ancestral-proud  spirits,  and  crushed 
them,  when  they  boasted  that  they  came  from  Abraham,  by 
saying,  "I  proceeded  forth  and  came  from  God."  That  beats 
the  Abraham  record. 

Moses  'Said,  "I  Am  hath  sent  me."  John  was  a  man  that 
came  from  God.  Jesus  Christ  said,  "I  proceeded  forth  and 
came  from  God."  I  don't  know  about  the  rest.  But  I  know, 
if  this  Divine  Word  is  true,  that  Moses  and  John  and  Christ 
stood  hand  in  hand  around  the  throne  of  God  and  took  their 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  119 

orders  from  the  same  majestic  King.  They  came  with  power 
into  this  world.  We  ought  to  listen  to  them.  "There  was  a 
man  sent  from  God,  whose  name  was  John/'  Some  of  you 
people  have  never  been  sent;  you  have  never  had  your  com- 
mission yet.  You  think  you  have,  but  you  have  been  disap- 
pointed. I  want  every  young  man  to  understand  that  he 
ought  to  have  a  commission  from  God  to  be  something  in 
this  world.  John  was  a  power  in  the  wilderness.  He  made 
such  a  turmoil  because  he  came  from  God.  He  had  a  com- 
mission, and  he  stuck  to  that  like  old  Peter  Cooper's  glue 
stuck  to  a  board.  He  never  let  go.  That  made  him  a  power. 
How  many  of  you  could  say,  if  you  were  to  stand  up  now, 
that,  like  John,  you  came  from  God?  Have  }rou  been  with 
Him,  and  have  you  a  message  from  Him?  Did  you  ever  get 
down  on  your  knees  and  ask  God  to  give  you  a  message  to 
deliver  to  the  world?  Did  you  ever  get  on  your  knees  and 
say,  "God,  here  I  am;  send  me"?  Have  you  ever  put  yourself 
in  such  a  position  that  a  consecrated  commission  could  be 
given  to  you — a  position  from  which  you  could  go  forth  to 
help  the  world  and  to  honor  God  ? 

I  like  old-fashioned  names  and  this  exalted  commission, 
i  wish  there  were  more  Johns  like  that,  and  more  Marys  in 
this  world.  What  did  he  come  for?  "The  same/'  that  is, 
Joihn,  came  for  something.  Any  man  will  if  he  has  a  com- 
mission from  God.  He  is  on  no  foolish  errand;  he  is  sent  for 
a  purpose.  "The  same  came  for  a  witness."  What  is  a  wit- 
ness? If  I  come  in  here  and  tell  you  there  is  something 
wrong  outside,  there  is  trouble  going  on,  two  boys  are  fight- 
ing, yon  say,  "Can  that  be  so?"  I  answer,  "Yes;  Professor 
Saylor  saw  it  too,"  and  he  says,  "Yes,  I  saw  it,"  he  is  a  wit- 
ness. He  was  there.  John  never  could  have  been  a  witness 
for  Jesus  Christ  unless  he  had  been  with  Jesus  Christ  and 
knew  what  he  came  for.  You  can't  witness  for  Christ  unless 
you  are  from  the  same  country,  and  know  the  same  things, 
and  can  testify  to  the  same  experience;  unless  you  have  lived 
like  Him,  and  have  some  communication  with  Him.  What 


120  LECTUBES  ON 

can  I  witness  about  a  miner  out  in  the  coal  fields  around 
McConnellsville  ?  I  have  not  been  there.  I  have  not  seen 
him.  His  world  and  mine  are  two  different  worlds.  If  he 
were  to  subpoena  me  in  court  to  say  what  he  is  doing  this 
moment,  what  would  I  have  to  say?  I  would  have  to  say:  "I 
know  nothing.  I  don't  know  anything.  I  am  not  a  witness." 
John  was  a  power  because  he  could  witness  to  the  things  he 
saw.  And  you  can  witness  just  as  fully  as  you  have  been 
with  Him,  and  have  learned  of  Him,  and  know  the  things 
that  belong  to  His  house.  The  more  a  man  is  with  Christ, 
the  better  witness  he  is.  The  more  a  man  is  in  communication 
with  the  spirit  of  God,  the  better  his  witness  of  Him  in  the 
world.  John  was  a  witness.  He  was  not  the  only  witness. 
God  has  not  been  dealing  with  humanity  for  six  thousand 
years  with  only  one  witness.  Moses  was  a  witness  for  God. 
Be  stood  in  heathen  lands  and  declared  for  Him.  Solomon 
was  a  witness  for  God.  David  was  a  witness  for  God.  I  wish 
I  could  call  them  all  up — Moses  and  Joshua  and  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  long  procession  of  men  and  women 
that  have  been  witnesses  for  God.  An  honorable  company! 
A  noble  record  is  the  record  for  God  in  the  character  of  His 
witnesses.  John  is  in  this  line;  that  is  all.  He  was  a  witness. 
Paul  was  a  witness.  Stephen  was  a  witness;  and  his  witness 
went  up  in  smoke  and  prayer  to  the  throne  of  God.  John 
was  a  witness  when  he  himself  came  with  dripping  head  on  a 
silver  platter,  murdered,  his  head  taken  from  his  body  at  the 
request  of  a  cruel,  scheming,  heartless  woman.  The  writer 
of  this  blessed  gospel  himself  was  a  witness  of  commanding 
power  when  he  said,  "I  saw  a  new  heaven."  On  the  record  of 
his  saying  it  you  and  I  have  been  living  and  praying  that  we 
too,  when  the  time  shall  come  for  us  to  get  out  of  this  rocky 
prison  of  difficulty,  shall  look  up  into  the  new  City  of  God  as 
John  looked  up  from  Patmos  and  saw  it  coming  down  out 
of  heaven  from  God. 

The  lesson  for  you  is  plain  enough.    Here  is  the  proces- 
sion from  Moses  down.    Are  you  in  it?    Are  you  a  witness? 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  121 

Has  God  been  compelled  to  give  you  birth  and  nurture  and 
mother  and  father  and  food  and  raiment  and  shelter  and 
education  and  life,  and  you  outside  the  line  of  witnesses  for 
Him!  You  are  an  ingrate!  All  He  asks  in  return  for  the 
multitude  of  blessings  that  He  heaps  upon  you  is  that  you 
shall  stand  in  the  line  with  all  the  holy  men  of  old  and  say: 
"I  too  have  been  with  Him,,  and  I  have  learned  of  Him.  He 
is  good.  Come  and  taste  of  the  Word/'  John  is  a  witness. 
Are  you?  Don't  you  want  to  be?  Let  that  question  sink 
deep  into  your  heart; — a  clean,  searching  question.  Are  you 
a  witness  for  God? 


122  LECTURES  ON 


LECTUEE  XI. 

John,  as  a  witness,  was  valuable  just  in  proportion  as  he 
had  the  life  that  he  witnessed.  John  was  simply  one  of  that 
long  procession  of  witnesses  to  which  you  ought  to  be  allied, 
and  with  which  you  ought  to  be  associated.  John  was  a 
peculiar  witness.  He  was  not  simply  a  witness,  as  he  himself 
testifies  that  he  was.  His  is  a  modest  way  of  putting  it.  John 
was  a  peculiar  witness  of  Christ's  coming.  This  makes  him 
different  from  other  witnesses  of  God.  Hewas  aherald  that  came 
before.  He  was  a  forerunner.  "Prepare  ye  for  the  coming  of  a 
greater  than  I."  He  was  a  herald  on  the  mountain  top.  Helooked 
to  the  east,  and  just  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  rising  light,  and 
while  the  world  was  still  asleep  in  the  valleys  below,  still  in 
the  darkness,  still  in  the  night,  still  in  the  gloom,  still  in 
doubt,  John  saw  the  rising  tides  of  heaven-born  light.  He 
stood  on  the  mountain  and  called  to  the  world,  "Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God."  John  saw  Him  first.  That  gives  John  a 
peculiar  character  as  a  witness,  marks  him  out  as  the  per- 
sonal forerunner  of  our  personal  Saviour.  I  think  John's 
vision  of  Christ's  coming  must  have  been  to  him  the  greatest 
source  of  pleasure  of  his  life;  to  be  selected  from  the  multi- 
tude as  the  only  man  who  was  to  see  the  Christ  before  others, 
and  so  to  come  and  tell  the  world  that  Christ  was  at  hand, 
that  He  was  even  in  their  midst.  That  must  have  been  a 
great  joy  to  him. 

John  very  clearly  testifies  what  he  was  not.  He  says  "he 
was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  to  that 
Light."  John  never  did,  I  believe,  claim  to  be  very  much  in 
the  world.  He  did  not  say  he  was  the  Light.  He  came  to 
bear  witness  to  the  Light.  Who  knows  the  difference  be- 
tween John  and  Christ?  Who  could  know?  How  could 
any  one  know  the  difference?  They  were  both  men,  both 
simple  in  their  tastes  and  life.  But  infinitely  different,  be- 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  123 

cause  the  one  was  the  true  Light  and  the  other  was  the 
witness  to  that  Light.  How  would  we  know  the  difference 
between  the  two  if  we  should  meet  them?  We  would  simply 
know  the  difference  by  the  power  that  would  be  manifested 
in  the  light  that  is  shed  abroad  from  them.  Suppose  you 
were  in  a  dark  room  all  your  life,  and  suddenly  a  little  light 
were  allowed  to  enter  the  room,  the  window-curtain  would 
be  drawn  aside  for  the  first  time,  and  you  would  look  out 
and  see  a  star  in  the  sky.  You  never  saw  such  a  thing  before. 
"How  beautiful!"  you  exclaim;  "I  never  saw  anything  like 
that  in  my  whole  life;  what  a  glorious  thing  that  is!"  Then, 
while  you  look,  suddenly  the  moon  comes  into  the  space  that 
is  open  to  your  gaze,  and  you  say,  "Why,  that  is  more  beau- 
tiful still;  that  is  a  better  light  than  the  other,  a  fairer  wit- 
ness of  the  light,  a  larger  revelation  of  the  light."  But  if 
you  stood  there  until  the  sun  sweeps  into  view,  nobody  needs 
to  tell  you  which  is  the  light.  You  know.  It  comes  with 
fluch  resplendency  of  light,  with  such  fullness  of  light,  with 
such  a  bathing  baptism  of  light,  that  the  world  knows  it  is 
the  light.  It  would  not  take  long  when  you  put  Christ 
beside  John  to  know  which  was  Christ  and  which  was  John; 
not  any  longer  than  to  know  the  difference  between  star- 
light and  sunlight.  Here  was  John;  he  was  a  power,  he  was 
glorious,  he  was  wonderful,  he  was  magnificent.  We  can  only 
say  of  Christ,  He  was  sublime  from  the  first! 

I  would  have  liked  to  have  been  with  God  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter,  "in  the  beginning";  when  it  was  all  night 
over  this  world  and  all  worlds;  when  God  started  the  light 
across  the  great  plains  of  His  infinite  purpose.  That  was  a 
magnificent  sight.  Did  any  of  you  ever  get  up  in  the  morn- 
ing and  see  the  sunlight  crown  the  mountains  and  flood  the 
valleys?  What  an  enthusiastic,  striking,  arousing,  waken- 
ing, quickening,  enlightening  vision  it  is!  But  what  must  it 
have  been  when  God  opened  the  gates  of  His  own  purpose 
and  flooded  the  universe  with  light,  until  it  rolled,  like  an 
infinite  tide  of  mighty  waters  over  the  whole  domain  of  His 


124  LECTURES  ON 

infinite  purpose,  and  the  world  was  bathed  in  light,  the  uni- 
verse was  suffused  with  light,  and  God  stood  revealed  in  the 
centre  of  the  mighty,  flooding,  waving  light!  God  said,  "Let 
there  be  light."  Just  as  soon  as  He  opened  His  life  to  the 
world  and  the  light  flowed  out,  it  was  possible  for  Him  to 
have  witnesses — just  that  soon.  For  every  man  that  will 
stand  in  the  light  can  witness  of  it.  Every  man  that  will 
stand  in  the  light  can  testify  to  the  light.  He  can  say,  "I 
have  seen  it,  I  am  in  it,  1  know  it."  And  every  man  that  is 
quickened  of  God  and  is  born  into  the  light  of  God  is  a  wit- 
ness to  that  light. 

Without  the  light  you  cannot  witness  for  God.  You  can 
witness  for  the  devil  in  the  darkness.  You  can  witness  for 
hell  without  any  of  the  revelation  of  heaven  whatever;  but 
you  cannot  witness  for  God.  And  you  want  to  teach  the 
world  that.  The  man  outside  of  the  church — what  can  he 
say  for  the  church?  What  right  has  he  to  speak  for  the 
church?  The  only  man  that  has  any  authority  to  speak  for 
God  is  the  man  whom  God  has  commissioned.  He  has  been 
born  into  the  light,  and  he  knows  the  difference  between 
light  and  darkness.  He  can  testify  to  the  difference  between 
them  from  personal  knowledge.  So  God  raises  up  a  witness 
to  Himself  every  time  He  brings  a  child  into  tihe  kingdom 
of  God. 

"He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not. 
But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power  to 
become  the  Sons  of  God."  Why,  of  course  you  could  not 
stand  in  the  light  without  being  transfigured.  When  Jesus 
Christ  went  up  to  the  mount  of  transfiguration,  God  opened 
His  mighty  throne  and  poured  out  the  light  that  fell  upon 
the  world  from  His  countenance,  transforming  the  Christ  and 
glorifying  Him.  You  cannot  stand  in  the  light,  you  cannot 
stand  in  the  baptism  of  God's  infinite  purpose  in  your  life, 
without  being  made  a  son  of  His.  He  will  purge  and  purify 
and  cleanse  and  glorify  you.  If  you  are  in  the  light,  you 
are  a  son  of  God,  and  no  longer  a  wayward,  wandering  scav- 
enger out  upon  the  dark  places  of  life. 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  125 

Now  the  dawn  comes.    Look  at  the  nineteenth  verse.    This 
is  the  record  of  John.    My  friends,  it  is  worth  something  in 
this  world  to  make  a  record,  no  matter  what  it  is.    It  is  worth 
something  to  have  a  record.     It  was  a  great  credit  to  John 
that  he  had  a  record.    When  any  asked,  "Who  is  John?"  the 
answer  was,  "There  is  his  record."    Who  is  Brother  Beahm? 
There  is  ids  record.     Who  is  Brother  John  Brumbaugh? 
There  is  his  record.    Who  was  John  the  Baptist?    There  is 
his  record.    Who  is  this  man  John  X?    I  don't  know;  he  has 
never  made  a  record.     What  good  is  he?     He  is  simply  a 
grazer  in  God's  fields;  he  has  never  done  anything  in  God's 
world.     What  is  the  very  first  thing  that  is  put  down  over 
against  John?     Twenty  years  of  God's  bounty  and  no  re- 
sponse; would  that  be  a  good  thing  to  write  down?    If  God 
helped  him  and  blessed  him  and  took  care  of  him  for  twenty 
years,  delivered  him  from  his  enemies,  preserved  unto  him 
ihis  family,  restored  his  children  when  sick,  helped  him  to 
educate  them,  and  that  man  went  out  cursing  and  forgetting 
God,  is  that  a  good  record?    John  the  Baptist  was  preaching. 
I  bless  God  for  a  man  that  has  a  record  like  that!    He  was 
preaching  out  in  the  wilderness — came  bursting  right  out  of 
the  black  wilderness  of  sin  and  superstition  with  his  mouth 
open,  preaching  the  truth  of  heaven.    He  was  preaching;  and 
tne  world  heard  him.    Notice  how  those  priests  and  Levites 
were  stirred  up  in  Jerusalem.     They  sent  a  man  down  to 
inquire  "Who  art  thou?"     John  was  preaching  out  in  the 
world's  wilderness  of  sin.    So  ought  we  to  be  preaching,  tes- 
tifying to  the  thing  that  we  have,  certifying  to  the  thing  that 
we  have,  raising  our  voice  for  the  power  that  has  been  re- 
vealed unto  us.     John  had  stirred  up  a  commotion  down 
by    the    Jordan.     Great    crowds    went    out    to    hear    him 
there  by  the  Jordan.     Great  crowds  went  out  to  hear  him 
preach.     Multitudes  followed  him.     The  Levites  and  the 
priests  were  jealous.    They  sent  down  to  inquire,  probably  in 
doubt,  "Who  art  thou?"     The  first  question  is  the  question 
every  preacher  must  meet  in  this  world.    When  a  man  raises 


126  LECTURES  ow 

his  voice  and  says  anything  in  this  world,  he  must  answer 
the  question  "Who  art  thou?"  "I  come  preaching."  But 
what  right  have  you  to  preach?  Who  are  you,  anyhow?  It 
is  of  infinite  importance,  of  infinite  service  to  the  cause,  that 
every  preacher  of  it  should  know  who  he  is.  What  manner 
of  man  are  you?  That  is  a  powerful  question.  And  unless 
a  man  can  answer  that,  his  preaching  will  be  of  little  value 
to  the  world.  John  knew.  "I  am  the  voice  of  one  crying  in 
the  wilderness."  "I  am  not  the  Messiah."  He  knew  what  he 
was  not.  He  knew  what  he  was.  There  are  preachers  of  God 
that  don't  know  that.  They  affect  to  do  and  to  be  able  to 
do  things  which  they  cannot  do.  Every  man  ought  to  know 
his  limits.  Over  the  old  Delphic  Oracle  of  Greece,  Socrates 
had  inscribed  this  wonderful  motto:  "Know  Thyself."  John 
the  Baptist,  coming  from  heaven,  from  the  Word,  had  learned 
that  important  lesson.  He  could  give  an  account  of  himself. 
He  knew  his  limits.  A  man  one  day  told  me,  "I  am  not 
going  to  preach  revival  sermons  any  more;  I  am  going  to  be 
a  doctrinal  preacher.  There  are  lots  of  revival  preachers; 
they  are  common.  I  want  to  be  a  doctrinal  preacher,  so  that 
I  will  be  of  great  service — called  for  on  special  occasions." 
He  did  not  know  his  strength.  He  did  not  know  his  weak- 
ness. He  will  never  be  able  to  preach  any  doctrine  or  any 
other  thing  until  he  knows  his  own  limits. 

John  knew  his  limits.  Who  are  you,  anyhow?  What  man- 
ner of  man  are  you?  Where  did  you  get  your  inspiration 
from?  What  is  your  commission?  What  do  you  know?  Are 
you  preaching  things  that  have  simply  become  the  rumor  of 
the  world,  or  do  you  know  of  God?  The  church  ought  to 
know  what  for.  Whrt  are  you,  church?  What  are  you 

in  the  world  for?  Some  people  think  a  church  is  simply  an 
organization  for  political  purposes,  to  control  elections  and 
get  their  friends  into  office.  That  is  not  what  it  is  for.  Some 
people  think  a  church  is  simply  a  social  organization  in  which 
men  of  congenial  spirits  get  together  to  help  each  other  on. 
They  desire  to  hold  oyster  suppers  and  have  a  nice  time  of 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  127 

an  evening  once  a  month,  and  the  church  is  a  convenient 
-organization  through  which  it  is  brought  about.  What  is  the 
•church  for;  what  is  it  not  for?  We  ought  to  come  to  under- 
stand that  the  church  is  God's  expression  in  the  world,  God's 
visible,  tangible  home  in  the  world.  And  in  the  church  there 
ought  to  be  this  one  thing — nothing  else — the  light  and  the 
witness  of  the  light.  That  is  all.  When  they  said  to  John, 
"Who  art  thou;  art  thou  Elias?"  he  might  have  said:  "Yes,  I 
am  Elias;  I  am  the  fellow  you  have  been  looking  for;  Elijah 
saw  me  in  a  vision.  Here  I  am;  put  me  on  a  throne,  with  a 
crown  around  my  brow."  He  might  have  lied  as  many  a 
man  is  tempted  to  lie  when  he  has  a  chance  to  be  exalted  to  a 
high  place  in  this  world.  When  the  time  comes  that  you 
have  a  chance  to  rise  to  a  high  place  in  this  world  because 
you  can  deceive  somebody,  you  had  better  look  out.  You  are 
subjected  to  a  great  temptation — just  to  submit,  keep  your 
mouth  shut  and  let  the  mob  push  you  up.  John  might  have 
done  that;  but  he  said,  "No,  I  am  not  Elias;  I  am  just  a 
voice  in  the  wilderness;  I  am  searching  for  the  light;  I  have 
seen  the  light,  I  bear  witness  to  the  light,  but  I  am  not  that 
light."  There  is  the  true  manhood,  the  absolute  manliness 
of  the  man  of  God. 

I  know  nothing  in  the  whole  Book  of  St.  John  that  appeals 
to  me  from  the  manly  side  with  more  strength  than  the  posi- 
tive truthfulness  of  John  in  the  beginning  of  this  ministry. 
"I  am  not  that  light."  "And  he  confessed  and  denied  not." 
"I  am  not  the  Christ."  And  they  asked  him,  "Art  thou 
Elias?"  and  he  answered,  "I  am  not."  "Art  thou  that 
prophet?"  And  he  answered,  "No."  They  said  again  unto 
him,  "Who  art  thou?"  He  said,  "I  am  the  voice  of  one  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness,  Make  straight  the  way  of  the  Lord,  as 
said  the  prophet  Esaias."  He  was  not  the  prophet.  He  was 
not  anything  that  they  thought  he  was.  He  was  what  God  had 
sent  him  to  be.  The  half  of  us  get  started  pretty  well,  but 
when  the  people  begin  questioning  us  we  forget  the  original 
mission  of  life  and  change  over  and  become  the  thing  that 


128  LECTURES  ON 

the  people  want  us  to  be.  John  denied  every  question  that 
did  not  tell  his  actual  personality.  What  am  I?  I  am  what 
God  commissioned  me  to  be,  and  I  won't  be  anything  else,  no 
matter  what  you  do  or  say.  It  cost  him  his  head;  but  it  won 
him  God's  favor.  He  did  the  right  thing. 

These  people  were  down  there  hunting  for  Elias,  as  they 
called  him.  They  had  been  looking  for  this  man,  this  vision, 
this  marvelous  manifestation  that  had  been  certified  to  from 
the  ages  back.  They  had  been  hunting  him  afar  off.  John 
said,  "There  standeth  one  among  you."  Many  of  us  make  a 
great  mistake  about  this  whole  matter  of  finding  Christ  and 
finding  the  prophet.  I  think  most  people,  when  they  shut 
their  eyes  and  pray,  think  it  is  going  to  take  about  a  day  and 
a  half  for  their  words  to  get  up  to  God.  I  said  to  a  boy  one 
day,  "How  far  is  it  to  heaven?"  He  said,  "It  is  away  off." 
I  said,  "How  far  off;  as  far  as  Philadelphia?"  "Yes,  sir." 
"  Farther  than  that  ?  Is  it  as  far  as  across  the  ocean  ?"  "  Yes,, 
sir."  "Is  it  as  far  as  the  moon?"  "Yes."  "Is  it  as  far  as  the 
sun?"  "Yes,  I  guess  it  is."  Where  is  it?  Where  is  heaven? 
Who  knows?  Do  any  of  you  know?  Go  out  with  a  string 
to  measure  the  distance;  how  much  string  will  you  need?  We 
get  a  kind  of  notion  that  God  is  away  off  yonder  in  the 
clouds,  infinitely  beyond  the  ken  of  man;  that  once  in  a 
while  He  opens  the  door  of  heaven  and  looks  into  the  world;, 
that  at  another  time  He  shook  the  word  of  truth  down  into^ 
the  world  like  a  ripe  apple  from  the  tree  of  Paradise;  and 
that  then  He  shut  up  the  heavens  again  and  left  us  strug- 
gling alone  in  this  world.  John  was  a  true  preacher  of  the 
light  because  he  declared,  there  is  one  in  your  midst.  God  is  in 
the  bread  you  eat  at  the  breakfast-table.  He  is  in  the  life  you 
live  to-day.  He  is  as  much  in  this  chapel  as  He  is  in  heaven, 
for  He  is  everywhere  present.  When  I  told  a  boy  that,  he 
said;  "Yes,  that  is  so.  God  is  right  on  my  lip."  And  then 
he  said,  "If  I  would  just  shut  my  mouth  I  would  have  Him 
in  my  mouth,  wouldn't  I?"  Well,  why  not?  Don't  you 
remember  when  Paul  went  into  Athens  'he  preached  that 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  129 

God  is  much  nearer  than  you  think,  "for  in  Him  we  live,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being"?  He  is  not  away  off.  John  un- 
derstood that.  He  said,  "There  standeth  one  among  you." 
There  is  a  nearness,  there  is  a  warmth  of  interest,  there  is  a 
close  kinship,  there  is  an  intimate  relationship,  there  is  a 
familiar  fellowship  between  Jesus  Christ  and  His  children. 
When  you  are  born  into  the  light  you  are  a  son  of  God;  and 
as  sons  of  God,  brothers  and  sisters;  and  as  such  you  enter 
into  the  most  intimate  and  most  sacred  communion  with 
Him.  People  never  understand  that  quite  right.  In  the 
mediaeval  times  Crusaders  made  pilgrimages  to  the  tomb  of 
Christ,  a  procession  of  men  and  boys  under  the  red  cross  of 
Christ  marching  to  the  east  over  thousands  of  miles  of  diffi- 
culties and  dangers  and  death,  hunting  God.  You  need  not 
worry.  The  blessed  gospel  according  to  St.  John  reveals 
right  here  in  its  very  first  chapter  the  intimacy  of  the  relation 
of  Jesus  Christ.  You  are  at  home  in  Him,  and  He  is  at  home 
in  you.  You  can  live  with  Christ  at  home  in  youtr  room,  in 
your  heart.  If  we  were  to  pray  nearer  than  we  do,  we  would 
be  heard  better  and  get  more. 

I  call  your  attention  again  to  the  peculiar  spirit  of  John  to 
prove  that  he  was  near  to  Christ.  When  Matthew  heard 
John  the  Baptist  preach,  Matthew  came  and  reported,  "His 
fan  is  in  his  hand."  Do  you  remember  that  remarkable 
expression?  That  is,  Matthew  heard  the  preaching  of  John 
the  Baptist  as  a  threat  to  drive  men  to  do  right.  His  fan  is 
in  his  hand — he  will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor.  Then  Mark- 
came  and  declared,  "He  will  gather  his  wheat  into  the  gar- 
ner." And  then  what?  "The  tares  he  will  burn  with  ever- 
lasting fire."  A  tremendous  thing!  John  must  have  preached 
fire  and  brimstone.  Then  Luke  came  and  said,  "The  axe  is 
laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree."  This  man  John  must  have  been 
a  powerful  preacher.  There  is  a  threat  all  through  these 
reports.  But  when  John,  the  writer  of  this  gospel,  heard 
John  the  Baptist  preach,  and  came  away,  and  they  said, 
"John,  what  did  he  say?"  John  answered,  "Behold  the  Lamb 


130  LECTURES  ON 

of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  He  did  not 
hear  John  make  any  threats;  he  did  not  care  for  any  threats. 
He  was  waiting  for  the  message  from  heaven.  John,  coming 
out  of  the  wilderness,  big,  bony,  uncouth  man  that  he  was, 
would  naturally  say  it  the  other  way.  Behold  a  lion  that 
will  eat  you  all  up  if  you  don't  behave.  But  John  the  Bap- 
tist got  the  tiling  right.  He  was  close  to  God.  And  John 
the  recorder  heard  the  blessed  message  of  this  great  herald 
when  he  said,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God."  Look  at  the  gen- 
tleness, look  at  the  sweetness,  look  at  the  comfort,  look  at 
the  intimacy  of  the  religious  spirit  here,  that  brings  this  right 
up  to  our  hearts,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh 
away  the  sin  of  the  world."  It  does  not  say  that  He  takes 
away  the  sinners.  If  God  had  wanted  to  take  away  the  sin- 
ners of  the  world,  He  could  have  done  that  very  quickly.  One 
blow  of  His  flashing  lightning,  and  they  would  have  been 
dead.  But  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world  and  to  save  the 
sinners  took  the  blood  of  Christ  on  Calvary.  That  was  a  dif- 
ferent matter.  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away 
the  sins  of  the  world,  that  saves  the  sinners  of  the  world, 
that  gathers  them  into  the  fold  of  righteousness  and  cleanses 
them  from  all  uncleanness,  that  saves  them  for  His  name's 
sake.  John  was  a  preacher  and  a  voice;  and  his  voice  was  for 
the  Lamb  of  God,  the  cleanser  of  the  world.  He  preached 
the  whole  day.  Note  what  happened  the  next  morning.  John 
was  out  there  in  the  wilderness;  he  had  no  friends.  He  was 
among  a  crowd  of  strangers  preaching,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God,"  doing  his  duty  alone,  nobody  to  help  him,  simply  work- 
ing all  day. 

The  next  morning  he  began  again,  and  saw  something. 
What  did  he  see?  "And  the  next  day  he  seeth  Jesus  com- 
ing." Stand  in  your  place  of  work,  and  you  won't  stand 
alone  very  long.  Jesus  will  get  very  close  to  you.  He  will 
be  by  your  side.  He  will  help  you.  John  could  not  stand  in 
the  wilderness  and  preach  forever  alone.  The  angels  of  God 
would  have  petitioned  the  Father  for  leave  to  come  and  be 


ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL.  131 

his  companions.  You  can't  stand  in  this  world  and  do  the 
will  of  the  Father  and  be  left  friendless  and  comfortless. 
Did  not  the  angels  come  and  minister  to  Christ?  You  are 
in  a  place  where  it  is  hard  for  you  to  do  right.  You  are  going 
iihrough  a  great  temptation  and  struggle.  Stick  to  it,  and 
to-morrow  morning  Christ  will  stand  by  your  side.  Some- 
body is  going  to  come  out  on  your  side.  Were  you  ever  in  a 
position  where  you  were  trying  to  do  what  was  right,  and 
where  at  first  everybody  else  was  against  you?  And  you  sim- 
ply stood,  in  the  meekness  and  quietness  and  gentlemanliness 
and  manliness  of  your  own  personality,  for  what  you  believed 
to  be  right,  and  after  a  while  somebody  was  convinced  that 
you  were  right.  Some  one  came  and  stood  by  you.  You  had 
companions.  Did  you  ever  see  this  transformation  as  it  is 
going  on  all  the  time  in  the  world?  You  don't  have  to  stand 
alone.  The  next  morning  he  seeth  Jesus  coming.  I  want 
you  to  understand  that  what  Jesus  did  for  John  the  Baptist 
He  will  do  for  you.  He  came,  and  when  He  came  John  knew 
Him.  He  knew  Jesus  just  as  soon  as  he  saw  Him.  Some- 
times our  help  comes  to  us  and  we  don't  know  it.  Men  get 
over  on  our  side  and  we  don't  know  it.  We  have  not  observed 
our  position  clearly  enough  to  know  it.  But  just  as  soon  as 
John  saw  Jesus  Christ  he  knew  Him,  and  said,  "Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  No 
misunderstanding  about  it.  "This  is  He  of  whom  I  said, 
After  me  cometh  a  man  which  is  preferred  before  me:  for  He 
was  before  me."  There  is  the  testimony  of  the  witness.  Jesus 
•came;  John  had  company.  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  the 
importance  of  taking  the  place  in  this  world  to  which  God 
.sends  you;  doing  your  duty  as  God  informs  you.  When  temp- 
tation comes  to  you,  as  it  came  to  John,  you  will  be  prepared 
to  face  it,  not  alone,  but  with  all  the  organized  power  of  God 
on  your  side.  The  church  comes  out  from  the  world  and 
takes  a  stand  against  it.  It  is  unpopular,  it  is  in  the  minor- 
ity, but  it  is  right.  It  can  afford  to  stand  right  there,  just 
•exactly  as  God  wants  it  to  stand,  until  the  world  shall  melt 


132  LECTURES  ON  ST.  JOHN'S  GOSPEL. 

and  surrender  and  yield  and  come  to  it.  You  have  the  assur- 
ance that  the  next  morning  He  will  come.  Just  stand  and 
wait  and  figtht  and  pray  and  struggle  on;  God  will  make  the 
church  triumphant  in  His  own  time.  Do  your  part  while  you 
have  a  chance.  ["The  night  cometh  wherein  no  man  can 
work." 


A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE.  133 


LECTURE  XII. 

A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 
A  Sermon  preached  in  the  Chapel  of  luniata  College,  April  4,  1897. 

"For  I  am  determined  not  to  know  anything'among  yon,  save  Jesus 
Christ  and  him  orncified."— 1  Cor.  ii.  2. 

It  is  the  language  of  Paul  addressed  to  the  Brethren  at 
Corinth,  in  a  letter  that  originated  in  a  peculiar  way.  Paul 
had  promised  to  return  to  the  Corinthian  church,  but  was 
detained  in  Asia,  where,  if  you  will  read  the  beginning  of  the 
letter,  you  will  find  that  he  had  been  beaten  and  probably 
imprisoned,  and  had  suffered  such  hardships,  and  was  sick 
so  long,  or,  as  he  himself  describes  it,  "was  near  to  so  great 
death/'  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  keep  his  word  with 
the  Brethren  in  Corinth.  Instead  of  making  his  second  visit 
on  time,  and,  remembering  his  promise  and  the  disappoint- 
ment that  would  naturally  follow,  he  addresses  a  letter  to 
them.  Instead  of  going  in  person  to  preach  and  to  minister 
unto  them,  he  sent  this  loving  epistle. 

No  doubt  the  church  at  Corinth  looked  for  great  things 
when  Paul  should  come  back.  I  will  read  the  first  verse  of 
this  chapter  to  show  you  why  I  think  so:  "I,  brethren,  when 
I  came  to  you,  came  not  in  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom, 
declaring  unto  you  the  testimony  of  God."  There  had  gone 
up  to  the  city  of  Corinth  a  marvelous  record  of  this  great 
man,  his  wonderful  scholarship,  his  splendid  powers  as  a 
preacher;  yet  he  says,  I  came  not  with  these  gifts.  I  came 
not  with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom;  I  came  unto  you 
bearing  testimony  of  God.  Then  he  reports  his  first  purpose: 
"For  I  determined  not  to  know  anything  among  you,  save 
Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified."  I  like  that  statement.  I 
like  a  man  who  knows  what  he  is  about  to  do,  and  is  not 
afraid  to  say  it.  It  is  a  square,  consistent,  business  statement 


134  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

of  his  purpose.  He  did  not  go  up  to  Corinth  in  doubt,  shift- 
ing, hesitating,  adjustable.  He  went  there  knowing  what 
he  went  for.  All  through  Paul's  career  the  keynote  of  his 
life  is  to  'be  read  and  understood  from  one  fact:  he  lived  a 
purposeful  life;  he  had  an  aim,  and  he  stuck  to  it.  He  had  a 
purpose,  and  he  lived  it  out.  So  I  speak  to  you,  taking 
these  words  of  Paul  as  my  text,  upon  the  value  of  a  life  with 
a  purpose  in  it,  or  upon  the  value  of  a  purposeful  life. 

What  does  it  mean  when  Paul  says,  "I  determined  not  to 
know  anything  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  cruci- 
fied"?   It  would  begin  to  look  as  if  Paul  were  a  specialist.  If 
a  man  were  to  come  into  this  room  and  say,  I  can  talk  to  you 
of  nothing  but  botany,  or  geography,  or  history,  or  electric- 
ity, you  would  say,  "  He  is  a  specialist."    That  is  Paul's  open 
confession.    "I  am  a  specialist.    I  come  to  you  not  pretend- 
ing to  know  or  to  do  everything;  I  come  to  you  to  do  one 
thing — what  Christ  taught  me  to  do  through  His  crucifixion. 
I  determined  to  know  nothing  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ 
and  him  crucified."    The  danger  in  taking  a  text  like  this  lies 
in  the  fact  that  we  get  an  idea  from  it  that  Paul  meant  to 
give  all  his  time,  every  moment  of  his  life,  every  thought  of 
his  life,  every  act  of  his  life,  to  this  one  thing,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  every  other  thing.    Eeading  it  in  that  light,  we  get 
a  kind  of  false  notion  of  Paul.     Understanding  it  in  that 
light,  a  great  many  men  have  lived  falsely  after  the  manner 
of  Paul.    Paul  did  not  mean  by  this  that  he  would  not  speak 
to  them  about  the  weather,  should  he  meet  them  on  the 
street;  that  he  would  not  enjoy  with  them  the  felicities  that 
come  from  good  health;  that  he  would  not  talk  to  them  about 
the  glories  of  the  sunset,tihe  beauty  of  the  architecture  of  the 
city,  the  beautiful  sculptures,  and  the  thousand  and  one 
things  that  would  pass  before  his  observation  and  challenge 
the  attention  of  any  man,  Paul  not  excepted.     It  does  not 
mean  that  he  would  shut  himself  away  from  all  these,  as 
some  would  have  us  to  understand.     For  if  it  did,  Paul 
would  have  been  a  fanatic,  which  he  never  was.    There  are 


A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE.  135 

men  who  foolishly  undertake  to  do  literally  wharf;  Paul  says 
'here,  without  understanding  the  purpose  of  Paul's  language. 
I  heard  of  a  man  who  sold  shoes  with  the  remark,  "I  sell  the 
best  shoes,  because  I  am  Christ's  agent."  Other  men  follow 
the  same  fashion,  obliterating  all  sense  of  proportion,  and 
fairness,  and  right;  who,  indeed,  would  remove  themselves 
from  society  and  live  like  the  hermit  Kelpius,  in  a  cave  on 
the  Wissahickon,  isolated  from  all  mankind,  that  he  might  hear 
nothing,  think  nothing,  be  nothing,  but  the  one  thing  that  he 
had  excluded  himself  into  becoming,  in  the  conviction  that  he 
was  doing  what  Paul  did.  If  Paul  had  done  so  he  could  only 
have  gone  to  Corinth  blindfolded,  with  all  his  senses  sealed 
up.  He  was  a  man  whose  life  was  awake  to  everything  going 
on  -about  him.  He  knew  when  he  went  into  Corinth  that  a 
thousand  things  would  demand  his  attention,  a  thousand 
things  would  demand  his  time;  but  upon  one  thing  he  had 
made  up  his  mind:  he  was  going  to  know  one  thing  there,  and 
make  every  other  thing  tributary  to  that  one  thing — Jesus 
Christ  and  Him  crucified. 

In  other  words:  "I  have  a  purpose.  I  shall  keep  my  eyes 
straight  before  me.  I  shall  give  myself  to  nothing  that  will 
interfere  with  my  one  object.  I  shall  go  to  those  things  that 
interest  me,  but  I  shall  make  them  all  tributary  to  my  one 
central  purpose/'  He  never  stayed  away  from  his  religious 
duties  to  perform  any  secular  service.  He  never  stayed  away 
from  a  chance  to  preach  to  entertain  company  in  his  home. 
He  never  sat  in  his  room  as  a  student  and  studied  his  Greek 
or  Latin  or  other  lessons  when  he  ought  to  have  been  in  the 
church  of  God.  He  knew  one  thing  he  had  to  do.  He  deter- 
mined to  do  that  and  allow  no  other  thing  to  interfere  with 
it.  Some  of  us  have  not  learned  that.  I  have  known  stu- 
dents in  this  school  that  have  not  learned  that.  I  have  seen 
students  sitting  in  their  rooms  studying  or  reading  a  book, 
pretending  to  be  members  of  the  church,  and  allowing  the 
prayer-meeting,  with  its  songs  and  services,  to  go  unheeded 
and  unattended.  To  kneel  down  after  that  sort  of  neglect 


186  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

and  pretend  to  be  a  child  of  God  is  certainly  not  like  Paul, 
could  not  be  like  Paul.  If  he  were  a  student  in  this  school  he 
would  be  in  every  service  here.  If  he  never  learned  his  Greek 
alphabet,  he  would  be  in  this  church.  This  one  thing  I  do, 
this  one  thing  I  am  going  to  know  among  you — Jesus  Christ 
and  Him  crucified;  whether  I  know  my  arithmetic  or  my 
geography  or  not,  this  I  will  know. 

Everything  else  had  to  adjust  itself  to  his  one  purpose.  He 
could  do  anything  or  everything  that  did  not  interfere  with 
the  one  thing  that  he  had  determined  to  do.  Other  things 
were  not  excluded,  they  were  simply  made  tributary,  subor- 
dinate to  the  central  purpose  that  he  had  determined  upon. 
If  there  is  anything  in  this  world  that  people  need,  it  is  to 
have  in  their  hearts  and  lives  a  dominant  thought  that  shall 
direct  them  in  everything;  that  shall  make  everything  yield 
to  it;  that  shall  be  one  constant,  continuous,  persistent  force 
controlling  them  under  all  circumstances.  You  need  that,  as 
Paul  needed  it  when  he  went  up  to  Corinth. 

Take  a  lower  point  of  view.  Suppose  I  should  say  to  you, 
"I  am  going  to  go  to  Paris  to  make  money.  I  am  going  to 
stay  five  years.  I  shall  spend  my  time  for  five  years  in  Paris, 
and  my  sole  purpose  is  to  get  rich."  Then  you  say,  "Are  you 
going  to  go  to  the  art  galleries?"  If  I  answer  like  Paul,  I 
would  say,  "That  depends."  Depends  upon  what?  It  de- 
pends upon  whether  that  would  interfere  with  the  thing  that 
I  resolved  to  do.  "Are  you  going  to  see  the  statuary  in 
the  Luxembourg?"  That  depends.  Depends  upon  what? 
Upon  whether  it  will  interfere  with  the  thing  that  takes  me 
to  Paris.  I  go  to  Paris  to  make  money.  I  may  do  these  other 
things  if  they  do  not  interfere  with  that.  If  they  do  inter- 
fere, I  will  not  do  them.  Everything  must  yield  to  that.  I 
am  going  to  make  money.  That  was  Paul's  view.  He  could 
»ee  everything  in  Corinth  that  Corinth  had  to  show  to  a 
wide-awake,  scholarly  man,  but  he  would  not  see  them  if  they 
interfered  with  his  purpose.  A  man  has  a  right  to  do  the 
things  in  this  world  that  broaden  and  strengthen  and  sustain 


A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE.  137 

and  help  his  life,  provided  these  things  do  not  interfere  with 
his  central  purpose.  What  right  has  a  student  whose  one 
purpose  in  school  is  study  to  sacrifice  his  time  to  things  that 
do  not  contribute  to  study?  Absolutely  none.  He  ought  to 
enter  the  school  as  Paul  entered  Corinth,  saying:  I  am  deter- 
mined to  do  one  thing  among  you — to  study  my  lessons  and 
study  them  well.  What  can  I  do?  Can  I  practice  in  the 
gymnasium?  Can  I  take  walks  in  the  open  air?  That  de- 
pends upon  whether  they  interfere  with  the  thing  that  I 
came  for.  If  they  do  interfere,  I  will  not  do  them.  Can  I 
.afford  to  be  a  rowdy  in  school?  That  depends.  Depends  upon 
what?  It  depends  upon  whether  I  want  to  be  one  or  not. 
That  is  the  point  in  it  all.  If  you  have  resolved  to  be  a  man, 
to  be  a  woman,  it  won't  pay  you  to  learn  by  being  a  rowdy. 
Should  I  steal  in  the  community  if  I  had  a  chance?  That 
depends.  If  you  want  to  go  to  jail,  to  suffer  the  ignominy 
of  being  regarded  as  a  thief  in  the  community,  steal.  But  if 
you  want  to  be  a  man,  if  you  want  to  live  the  truth,  if  you 
want  to  obey  the  law,  if  you  want  to  be  or  to  do  any- 
thing that  is  decent,  then  you  can't.  It  depends  upon  what 
your  central  purpose  is. 

I  honor  Paul  because  he  set  that  standard  for  me.  He  had 
in  his  mind  from  the  beginning  the  thing  that  he  was  going 
to  do,  and  he  lived  his  whole  life  to  that  end.  That  is  what 
counts  in  this  world.  It  does  not  pay  to  scatter  water  all 
over  the  pavement  in  the  hope  that  you  will  wear  the  bricks 
away.  But  drop  one  drop  after  another  upon  one  spot  on  the 
brick,  and  you  will  drill  it  to  pieces.  It  is  having  an  aim  and 
a  purpose  and  pressing  continuously  for  that;  diligent  in 
business,  persistent  in  business,  continuous  in  purpose,  not 
shifting,  not  yielding,  as  many  do — that  makes  life  glorious. 
Paul  learned  that  from  Christ,  Who  said,  "Seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,"  and  then  all  these 
other  petty  little  things,  these  unimportant  things,  these 
inferior  things,  shall  be  added  unto  you.  But  what  is  the  use 
of  multiplying  these  in  your  life  if  you  have  no  central  pur- 


138  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

pose  to  which  they  contribute?  There  is  nothing  more  to 
be  deplored  in  this  world  than  an  aimless  life;  living  without 
a  purpose,  shifting,  changing  from  day  to  day,  like  a  boat  on 
the  water  without  a  rudder  or  a  sail  or  a  compass,  driven  with 
the  winds;  as  changeable,  as  variable,  as  unsteady  as  the 
breath  of  air  that  sweeps  across  the  water.  What  is  more  to 
be  deplored  than  a  life  that  drifts  with  its  own  impulses,  its 
own  passions,  that  has  absolutely  no  central  purpose,  that 
•eats  to-day  because  appetite  calls  for  food,  that  drinks  to-mor- 
row because  appetite  calls  for  drink,  that  sins  in  all  forms  of 
indulgence  because  appetite  calls  for  gratification,  that  drifts 
as  foolishly  as  a  man  who  would  take  his  seat  in  a  carriage, 
throw  the  reins  to  the  winds,  strike  the  horses  a  blow,  and 
trust  to  the  dumb  animals  to  take  him  whither  they  would! 
His  course  would  be  no  more  uncertain  than  yours  in  life, 
moved  by  your  own  impulses  and  passions,  without  a  purpose. 
The  great  value,  in  addition  to  what  I  have  said,  in  living 
a  life  with  a  purpose  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  gives  tone,  color, 
character  and  consistency  to  the  whole  life.  A  great  pur- 
pose, once  selected,  determines  the  whole  tenor  of  your  life. 
Note  an  avaricious  man.  You  can  see  it  in  his  face.  You 
can  see  it  in  the  way  he  handles  things,  in  the  way  he  touches 
everything.  He  has  the  bargain-counter  spirit,  to  give  little 
and  take  much,  written  in  every  lineament  of  his  counte- 
nance. He  is  avaricious,  and  you  know  it.  Note  a  man  who 
is  contemplative,  reflective,  meditative,  thoughtful,  and  it 
writes  itself  upon  his  countenance,  it  expresses  itself  in  his 
footstep,  it  shows  itself  in  the  language  he  uses,  it  mirrors 
itself  in  his  whole  life.  When  you  have  once  selected  your 
life  purpose  and  lived  consistently  to  that,  you  become  like 
the  thing  that  you  have  resolved  to  be.  I  read,  years  ago,  a 
legend  of  an  artist  in  Seville,  who  was  sent  out  to  paint  an 
angel.  He  walked  the  streets  of  Seville  week  after  week  to 
find  a  face,  a  human  face,  that  would  represent  an  angel.  He 
studied  every  one  that  came,  and  when  he  finally  obtained  his 
model  and  began  to  paint,  his  heart  warmed  to  his  purpose, 


A  PUBPOSEFUL  LIFE  139 

and  he  wrought  with  such  exceeding  zeal  that  after  a  while 
there  appeared  upon  the  canvas,  line  by  line,  a  marvelous 
face — an  angel  face.  He  took  it  to  the  king  for  his  reward. 
But  to  his  great  surprise,  when  he  presented  the  picture  the 
king  turned  it  indifferently  aside,  and  looked  at  the  man. 
"Why/'  exclaimed  the  king,  "I  do  not  need  to  buy  that  por- 
trait of  an  angel;  your  face  is  better  than  the  face  you 
painted."  He  had  determined  to  know  an  angel  so  thor- 
oughly that  he  became  like  one  in  his  face.  His  character, 
his  life,  his  tone,  were  all  wrought  out  from  his  central  pur- 
pose. There  is  a  celebrated  artist  to-day  in  Paris  who  is 
shunned  -on  the  streets  by  innocent  people.  He  looks  like 
vice,  like  the  impersonation  of  sin  in  its  worst  form.  He 
studied  vice  in  the  dens  of  infamy,  in  bawdy-houses,  in  rum 
shops,  in  all  its  most  vicious  forms;  and  he  has  reveled  in  that 
Bort  of  thing  until  he  is  like  it.  He  can  never  paint  it  out  of 
his  face,  nor  work  it  out  of  his  life.  When  you  have  settled 
upon  a  purpose,  that  purpose  moulds  your  life,  transforms 
you  bodily,  spiritually,  intellectually,  to  the  thing  you  desire 
to  be.  A  good  detective,  who  never  saw  you  before,  could 
come  in  here,  and,  when  you  walked  out,  tell  what  business 
you  follow  by  the  way  you  walk.  The  shoemaker  has  a  pecu- 
liarity in  his  gait,  the  preacher  in  his,  the  artisan  in  his. 
When  you  once  have  a  purpose  in  life,  it  is  reflected  in  all 
you  do.  A  man  cannot  be  a  hypocrite  to  any  great  extent  in 
this  world.  Something  tells  on  him  always. 

Having  selected  such  a  purpose,  it  ennobles  your  charac- 
ter by  making  it  more  elevated,  by  giving  to  it  a  higher  dig- 
nity, a  higher  worth.  The  man  with  a  purpose  is  always 
worth  more  than  the  man  without  a  purpose.  His  purpose 
may  even  be  low,  and  yet  he  is  a  man  that  is  more  to  be 
feared  than  the  purposeless  man.  The  one  man  in  the  com- 
munity that  I  am  afraid  of  is  the  man  that  is  persistently, 
continuously  bad.  He  is  a  dangerous  man  in  the  community. 
He  is  hard  to  reform.  How  we  shake  our  heads  in  doubt 
wiben  a  man  who  has  been  using  tobacco  for  twenty  years,  or 


140  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

using  liquor  for  twenty  years,  or  swearing  for  twenty  years, 
or  lying  for  twenty  years,  proposes  to  quit  such  practices! 
It  is  well-nigh  impossible  for  him  to  change.  Nothing  but 
the  grace  of  God  can  change  influences  like  that.  Our  phy- 
sical nature  is  natural.  We  are  t(he  thing  we  have  been  doing. 
Such  a  purpose  as  Paul's  ennobles  character  by  giving  to  it  a 
certain  elevation.  It  breaks  up  the  monotony  of  life.  There 
is  a  difference  between  a  level  landscape  and  mountainous 
scenery.  There  is  greater  beauty  and  sprightliness  and  life 
in  a  mountain  country  than  there  is  in  the  level  plain.  A 
life  that  is  one  changeless  monotony  is  like  a  spread  out 
table-land.  I  like  a  life  that  breaks  up  sometimes  into  Alpine 
peaks  that  catch  the  sun  and  reflect  some  of  the  glories  of  the 
heavens.  You  can't  do  that,  your  life  will  not  take  on  these 
high  phases,  it  will  not  shine  with  resplendent  power,  unless 
your  purpose  elevates  it  to  the  place  where  God  is. 

Some  of  you  were  baptized  the  other  day.  That  gladdened 
my  heart.  I  am  grateful  for  that.  I  wish  it  might  be  said  of 
this  school,  as  of  every  school,  that  every  student  in  it  who 
seeks  to  know,  is  seeking  in  the  light  of  the  truth  of  God.  I 
wish  it  were  unanimous.  What  does  it  mean  to  join  the 
church?  It  is  taking  upon  yourself  this  same  purpose  that 
Paul  took  when  he  went  up  to  Corinth.  It  is  resolving  to 
know  nothing  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified,  to  have 
no  purpose  above  that.  It  is  a  covenant  with  God  to  live 
faithful  until  death.  It  is  putting  a  new  purpose  into  your 
life,  a  (higher  purpose,  a  broader  purpose,  a  more  noble  pur- 
pose. It  is  making  you  unselfish.  It  is  making  you  more 
Christlike.  When  a  man  joins  the  church  he  no  longer  lives 
for  himself  alone.  He  lives  now  to  the  glory  of  God.  He 
lives  to  do  good.  He  sees  that  he  can  best  do  what  he  is  to 
do  in  the  church  by  doing  good  to  others,  by  serving  instead 
of  being  served.  He  learns  that  exaltation  comes  only  as 
humility  precedes.  It  means  the  adoption  of  a  new  ideal, 
the  taking  up  of  a  new  career.  It  is  infinitely  higher  than 
the  taking  up  of  any  other  career.  It  is  a  great  thing  when 


A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE.  141 

a  child  begins  to  go  to  school  at  the  age  of  six.  He  has 
resolved  to  know  something.  He  starts  to  school.  He  is 
going  to  receive  a  new  outlook  upon  life.  It  is  a  great  thing 
when  he  resolves  later  on  to  leave  home  to  go  to  school  or  to 
go  into  business.  It  is  a  matter  of  great  moment  in  his  life. 
But  to  enter  the  church  is  infinitely  higher  than  anything 
else  that  a  man  can  do,  since  the  end  that  he  seeks  to  accom- 
plish is  infinitely  above  any  other  end  that  he  can  seek  to 
achieve.  If  he  is  concerned  about  his  'education,  about  his 
home  life,  about  his  business,  about  other  things  that  inter- 
est his  life,  he  ought  to  be  infinitely  more  concerned  about 
the  things  that  touch  his  higher  life  and  move  to  his  soul's 
good. 

When  a  man  takes  upon  himself  tihis  ideal  purpose  there 
is  no  disappointment  in  his  life.  Little  streams  take  holi- 
days, larger  streams  never.  Little  lives  take  holidays,  larger 
lives  never  do.  Paul  had  no  holidays.  "This  one  thing  I  do/' 
Paul  is  the  persistent  and  unchanged  man.  He  is  not  as 
uncertain  as  the  stream  that  wanders  out  from  the  side  of 
the  hill,  and  in  the  summer  season  deserts  its  channel,  and 
the  bare  rock  and  the  absence  of  water  meet  the  thirsty 
traveler.  The  little  stream  may  be  elsewhere,  floating  on  the 
breezes,  shining  in  the  dewdrops,  laughing  with  the  flowers, 
climbing  in  the  sap  of  the  trees.  The  wandering  life  of  the 
little  stream  may  be  pleasant  and  beautiful,  but  the  little 
stream  has  deserted  its  home.  And  the  cattle  that  walk  its 
banks  in  search  of  vegetation  and  refreshment  must  go  un- 
satisfied and  thirsty.  But  when  you  go  to  Niagara  how  dif- 
ferent it  is!  There  is  the  same  unchanged,  sweeping,  mighty 
mass  of  waters.  You  stand  and  see  it  make  its  awful  plunge 
and  say:  "In  an  hour  it  must  all  come  down.  There  can  be 
no  more  water  there."  But  when  the  hour  is  over  the  stream 
still  flows.  It  flows  forever!  This  is  a  type  of  the  Pauline 
spirit;  a  type  of  the  life  that  has  a  purpose,  that  is  resolved 
to  do  one  thing  and  do  it  well,  that  knows  no  change,  no 
shifting,  no  uncertainty. 


142  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

A  purpose  like  this  makes  character  and  destiny.  That 
is,  when  a  man  determines  that  he  shall  know  Christ  and  not 
know  some  one  else,  some  other  power,  his  life  begins  to 
move  over  toward  Christ.  His  point  of  view  changes.  That 
is  what  it  means  to  be  a  Christian.  You  try  to  know  your- 
self, you  try  to  know  this  or  that  point  of  view;  but  when 
you  come  into  the  church  you  must  stand  with  Christ  and 
know  the  -world  from  His  point  of  view.  You  must  know 
heaven  and  your  duty  from  the  place  where  Christ  was  cru- 
cified. Your  abiding  tabernacle  must  be  on  Golgotha.  Again, 
when  a  man  accepts  Christ  and  Him  crucified,  there  is  only 
one  thing  left  for  him  to  do.  He  must  continuously  stand  by 
Christ.  He  must  raise  the  cross  of  Christ.  He  must  live  for 
it.  He  must  call  others  to  it.  "And  as  Moses  lifted  up  the 
serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son  of  Man  be 
lifted  up:  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  eternal  life/'  It  is  your  business  as  a  member 
of  the  church  to  stand  with  the  cross  up  and  your  voice  ring- 
ing out,  "Come  and  live." 

It  may  be  wise  to  notice  that  this  purpose  has  no  limita- 
tions.   You  may  feel  that  it  was  all  right  for  Paul  to  go  up 
to  Corinth  knowing  nothing  but  Christ  and  Him  crucified, 
but  it  would  not  do  for  you.   That  it  is  all  right  for  preachers 
who  have  nothing  else  to  do.    But  to  say  that  it  is  not  right 
for  you  is  to  limit  the  power  of  Christ  and  to  put  Him  to 
open  shame,  to  make  of  none  effect  the  sacrifice  that  was 
made  for  all  the  world.    It  is  just  as  much  your  business  and 
your  life  as  it  was  Paul's.    If  you  have  chosen  to  stand  for 
the  cross  of  Christ,  let  me  beseech  you  to  do  it  resolutely,  to 
do  it  persistently,  to  do  it  without  any  fluctuation  in  your 
purpose.    Sometimes  it  is  easy  to   stand,  sometimes  it  is 
hard.     Sometimes  you   can  stand   in  a  great   crowd,   and 
that  supports  wonderfully;  sometimes  you  must  stand  alone, 
and  that  takes  courage.    But  if  you  have,  as  Paul  had,  a  cen- 
tral purpose,  you  can  stand  whether  alone  or  with  many.  You 
will  have  to  stand  continuously  for  the  thing  you  have  es- 


A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE.  143 

poused,  otherwise  this  espousal  will  be  of  no  avail  to  you. 
it  will  mean  nothing  in  your  life.  It  'always  seems  to  me  a 
matter  of  great  comfort,  as  I  look  forward  to  it,  to  be  a  mem- 
ber of  the  church.  I  like  to  think  of  the  time  when  I  shall 
enjoy  the  companionship  of  all  those  who  have  been  members 
of  the  church.  There  have  been  members  of  the  church  in 
days  past  that  I  want  to  know.  I  never  saw  them  in  the 
flesh.  I  want  to  see  them  in  the  spirit.  There  are  things 
here  that  Paul  wrote  that  I  do  not  understand;  doubtless  I 
never  shall  while  I  live.  I  should  like  to  talk  with  Paul  about 
these  things.  I  should  like  to  see  him.  There  are  other  men 
whose  'names  are  closely  identified  with  Christ  that  I  would 
like  to  see.  I  can't  do  it  here;  it  is  absolutely  beyond  the 
range  of  possibility  for  me  unless  I  do  the  thing  that  they 
did,  and  make  the  cross  of  Christ  the  central  thing  in  my 
life,  and  live  for  it.  Then  I  shall  come  with  them  into 
Christ's  glory,  and  know  them  as  they  know  Him.  We  shall 
be  together.  I  should  like  to  see  John  the  Baptist,  the  fore- 
runner of  Christ,  the  marvelously  rugged  but  marvelously 
noble  man  who  came  to  tell  the  world  of  the  Christ  that  was 
to  be.  I  should  like  to  know  him.  Then  I  should  like  to 
see  some  of  the  men  who  have  made  the  church  glorious  in 
the  years  since,  who  did  not  walk  hand  in  hand  with  Christ 
over  the  hills  of  Judea,  but  who  since  that,  in  faith,  have 
walked  close  to  Him,  have  labored  for  Him,  have  taken  upon 
themselves  the  Pauline  purpose  of  knowing  nothing  save 
Christ  and  Him  crucified.  I  want  to  see  some  of  those  men. 
You  can  name  over  in  your  heart  those  that  you  knew.  It 
may  be  your  mother.  It  may  be  your  grandparents.  It  may 
be  your  father.  It  may  be  somebody  near  'and  dear  to  you, 
who  has  lived  righteously,  who  has  done  his  or  her  part  to 
reveal  again  the  cross  of  Christ  to  the  world. 

You  want  to  see  them.  You  have  a  right  to  see  them. 
But  in  order  to  do  that  you  have  a  duty  to  perform — that  of 
living  so  that  you  are  worthy  of  them.  "I  determined  to 
know  nothing  amongst  you,  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  cru- 


144  A  PURPOSEFUL  LIFE. 

cified,"  that  I  may  teach  you  aright,  that  I  may  induce 
others  to  do  right  with  me.  When  you  (read  this  text,  or 
think  it  over,  don't  forget  the  last  word.  It  does  not  read, 
"I  determined  to  know  Jesus  Christ,"  but  "Jesus  Christ  and 
Him  crucified/'  You  must  not  take  that  last  word  out  of  it, 
if  you  want  <tihe  power  of  the  text.  You  are  not  to  study  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  wonder  that  came  in  miraculous  and  uncertain 
ways  into  the  world.  You  are  not  to  know  Jesus  Christ  as  a 
great  socialist  that  broke  down  the  walls  between  labor  and 
capital  and  made  all  men  equal.  You  are  not  to  know  Him 
as  a  great  philosopher  who  came  to  exemplify  again  some- 
thing of  the  glory  of  the  Greek  philosophy.  That  would  not 
be  Christ.  There  is  no  salvation  in  Christ  save  in  the  cruci- 
fied Christ;  the  whole  power  is  in  the  life  that  went  out  for 
you  and  for  me  on  the  cross.  That  makes  your  life  and  mine 
a  crucified  life,  if  it  is  to  be  a  redeemed  life.  That  makes  us 
sing,  with  a  wealth  of  meaning  to  us: 

"In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 

Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time; 
All  the  light  of  sacred  story 

Gathers  round  its  head  sublime." 

When  we  come  to  accept  this  as  the  high  ideal  of  our  life, 
and  try  to  live  it  in  our  lives,  then  comes  to  us  the  promise 
of  Christ,  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  That  is,  when  a  man  lives 
the  life  of  Christ,  the  crucified  Christ,  a  life  of  love  and  of 
self-surrender,  he  comes  to  live  a  life  of  rest  and  of  peace. 
There  come  to  him  the  same  feelings  that  come  into  the- 
heart  of  a  child  when  the  twilight  falls,  the  world  of  glory  is 
faded,  the  world  of  sense  is  hushed,  the  world  of  forms  is 
gone,  and  the  little  child  steals  into  its  mother's  arms,  nestles 
close  to  her  heart,  and  lives  in  a  world  of  love  and  a  world  of 
rest.  So  the  child  of  God  in  hours  of  weary  waiting  and 
troublous  trials  hears,  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labour  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 


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